Board 8 > Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1278

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've taken Sonic over a lot of strong characters 1-on-1 throughout the years. I have only really been right in 2006. If we have a Character Battle this summer, people will be looking for any opportunity to pick Cloud/Sephiroth upsets.
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AxemRedRanger posted...

Would anyone take Sonic > Sephiroth in a fair 1-on-1?

Hell no, not SONIC.
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sonic matches next contest might be fun

he simultaneously got brought back to life (Mania) then crash and burned (Forces) in the span of like 4 months. that has to be a record. i really do wonder what side of the fence GameFAQs will be on.

i think I'd honestly take Sonic over Sephiroth, but I wouldn't trust Sonic against any other NN character, or against most Pokemon (though I'd take Sonic over all the non-Pokemon near elites)
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I don't think I'd take Sonic over Sephiroth, but I might take Crono or Mega Man over Sephiroth.

LeonhartFour posted...

I mean Sephiroth was directly affected by a double rally in that Draven/Mewtwo match you keep mentioning

but regardless the CBIX X-Stats predict 65/35 for Sephiroth

boom

Whoops! Wasn't thinking clearly. I need you to keep me in line, as usual. =P And yes, you are correct about 2013 being BY FAR the worst contest as far as measuring characters.

At first I was thinking the contest might have been worse if it had been four-way....but, probably not. For one thing, three-way LFF is worse than 4-way with only two characters leeching each other. Secondly, the four-way contests had something VERY useful for determining character strength... the fact that two winners would move on in each round.

2013's character contest is absolutely 100% useless as far as x-stats go, which is why I never used x-stats in my argument.. But I still say three-way predicts two-way matches significantly better than four-way as far as consistent performances go, assuming no leeching or SFF. I would rather go with 2013 results than 2010 x-stats. That's because I think there would has been less change in characters' strength between 2013 and 2018 than between 2010 and 2013... and that is because the vote totals dropped like crazy between '10 and '13.

Yes...NW is correct. We need a character contest! This year! 128 character contest, with 12-hour matches! (no simultaneous polls, plz...b/c of the stupid rally spillover)
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A repeat of the 2010 format would be nice, but the 12-hour quarterfinals were just plain wrong.
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Haste_2 posted...

with 12-hour matches!

get out
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Shadow of the Colossus vs. BioShock who wins?
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In honor of this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3xlkZXL4SM" data-time="

Who would be the strongest Breath of the Wild character (ignoring Link/Zelda/Ganondorf)
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Haven't played, can't say!

On a related note, are either of Zelda or Ganondorf notable and likable enough there that a boost would be plausible? I assume they'll do at least marginally better just because of the series being big and relevant again.
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"Calamity Ganon" is just this big ugly smoke monster pig thing and I don't think they ever even mention "Ganondorf" but the brand association would be a small boost. I don't think Ganondorf is ever going to massively spike in popularity but he might make small gains consistent with his franchise continuing to have strong and relevant entries.

But what would def help out is his Hyrule Warriors key art being in match pics. He looks like a goddamn badass:



Zelda would probably get a slightly larger boost just from not being as bland in this one. She's still bland, but we're not talking snooze-fest Zelda from Skyward Sword or Goth GF Zelda from Twilight Princess. She actually is shown going out and doing stuff and her diary entries make her a bit more compelling. Also for the first time ever her match pics can feature her without a princess dress without it being a hinderance to her recognizability.

As far as the strongest NEW character from BotW, Mipha and Sidon seem to be super popular with fans, but you would also see an outside chance with Urbosa. I don't think anyone cares for Daruk and people actively dislike Revali.
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Mipha and Zidon are indeed the best BotW characters

but Urbosa would probably be the most popular (which is to say she'd probably be a little stronger than Groose)
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Revali is the best BotW character because speedrunners love his ability.

...Yeah, nobody from BotW is going to be worth much.
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Favorite Chrono Trigger character poll today:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7014-

All I know is that the first 2 votes went to Frog, but I did not monitor the poll to see how long it took for someone other than Frog to get a vote.
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Huh, favorite CT character poll. Interesting.

Looks like Frog might be the Yoshi of CT.
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also I hate it when Allen adds "I've never played it" to favorite character polls
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Is this the first CT character poll we've had?
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I could understand why that option would be in a Chrono Trigger character poll, simply because the game is almost non-existent in certain parts of the world in terms of people who have played it.

Despite the presence of the "I've never played it" option, I won't treat it as a valid proxy for playrate because it differs very significantly from this poll 3 years ago:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5810-

The above poll shows a playrate of 71.38% based on the last option, but today's poll already shows a playrate of 63.90% and we're only in the Power Hour (CT's best time period). The last option would also be expected to go up in percentage overnight, likely surpassing 40% (or a playrate under 60%).
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Tifa can beat Sephiroth...if Tifa is in Smash 5 and Sephiroth isn't.
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yeah but this poll isn't about whether or not you've played the game

if you haven't played the game you just don't vote
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If the poll did not have an option for "I've never played it", then you wouldn't vote in this poll if you have not played the game. But since that option is present in the poll, there's an option for people who have not played the game.
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LusterSoldier posted...

If the poll did not have an option for "I've never played it", then you wouldn't vote in this poll if you have not played the game. But since that option is present in the poll, there's an option for people who have not played the game.

I know your thing is stating completely obvious things but man you're dense
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Frog adds another upset to his GameFAQs history, yowza.

If we had seen this poll before Frog ever debuted in the contests, man, B8 would have taken him over Solid Shit in a big way...and then him barely beating Liquid would have been heartbreaking to those very same brackets.
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I mean I think people learned their lesson from Yoshi in 2003
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Wow, Crono has really fallen on hard times.
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Crono isn't even the strongest character in his own game?! ha
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I always love the weirdness of CT characters. Like, only on GameFAQs would Crono vs. Mario be an actual god damn rivalry of legend.
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LeonhartFour posted...

I mean I think people learned their lesson from Yoshi in 2003

Maybe! They could have also taken a bad lesson from Magus getting 35% on Link that same year though, plus we saw Crono go toe-to-toe with Mario again too.

If people had seen this poll play out like this after the 2003 contest and then saw who Frog could face in the sprite round of 2004, I think there would have been a whole lot of bandwagoning.

Maybe not you since you had your Magus-skepticism for awhile, but I don't think many people would have looked at Yoshi (or Knuckles) in an effort to discredit this CT-poll. They probably would have been brushed aside as platformer-weirdness with a variety of spin-offs to complicate things.
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Also, are there RPG polls like today's that get their strongest character wrong? FF3/6 is the only other one I can think of, and even then we've not really PROVEN it by either including Kefka in their poll or seeing Shadow/Sabin in a contest to compare against Terra (or Locke):

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/847-who-is-your-favorite-final-fantasy-vi-character
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I don't think we've seen any favorite RPG character polls other than this one and some Final Fantasy polls that are generally 15+ years old.
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In these kinds of polls, there certainly seems to be a lot of LFF.
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Honestly I'm impressed Crono is beating Magus here even though he'd throttle him in an actual contest setting.

I guess Magus being edgy and cool doesn't mean shit now that the userbase is much older on average. I wonder if the same think will happen with Vincent (if it hasn't already).
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I think we pretty much saw that Vincent had dropped in 2013.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5156-character-battle-ix-division-2-round-1-kos-mos-vs-dunban-vs
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5229-character-battle-ix-division-2-round-2-phoenix-vs-vincent-vs

At the time people blamed Phoenix > Vincent on the hilarious picture, and that probably contributed, but look at his earlier match. 60% on KOS-MOS in 2013 is just not a near-elite level performance and that's assuming you don't try to argue Xeno-LFF or something. KOS-MOS is probably around the fodder-line at best so yeah that looks pretty damn bad for Vincent!
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I mean Vincent did drop and probably would have lost to Mewtwo anyway, but I doubt he loses to Phoenix without that terrible picture.
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oh hey it's the return of Wyoming

Ayla is winning in Wyoming

Magus is also winning in Montana but that's less funny
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The "I haven't played Chrono Trigger" option is pretty high when you consider its contest strength.
Then again, polls were always a bad measure.
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Here's a fun question:

Do you think Brawl breaks 40% on Melee in a 1v1?
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probably not because Melee fans would rally to make sure they won
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Rallies have a hard time running up the score. That's why a lot of rallied wins tend to be just over 50%. Although, I think SSBM fans rallied against Pokemon Gold/Silver last time so I don't think they are completely against it.
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well rallies tend to be run by the weaker entity
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let's say that the contest takes place before Smash 5 comes out (99% chance this is the case)

if a character is just ANNOUNCED for Smash 5, will the hype give them a contest boost? like if Captain Toad is announced for Smash during the nom period and makes it in at a decent seed, can he ride recognizability and the SMASH 5 FEAR to a win or two? is there ANY potential Smash 5 newcomer that could get a sizable boost pre-Smash 5?
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A Crono announcement would be an absolute game changer.
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That sort of happened to Ike during the 2007 contest, though he lost in the first round. Sonic would have likely lost to Squall if it wasn't for it. He went from 54.65% in round 1 to 65.41% and 65.70% in round 2 and 3 respectively against Sub-Zero.
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ZenOfThunder posted...

like if Captain Toad is announced for Smash during the nom period and makes it in at a decent seed, can he ride recognizability and the SMASH 5 FEAR to a win or two? is there ANY potential Smash 5 newcomer that could get a sizable boost pre-Smash 5?

Irrelevant. Captain Toad will not be in Smash.
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charmander6000 posted...

Sonic would have likely lost to Squall if it wasn't for it.

ugh don't remind me
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Be wary, friends, for when Knuckles is announced for Smash 5, he will defeat Solid Snake, once and for all!
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AxemRedRanger posted...

I think we pretty much saw that Vincent had dropped in 2013.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5156-character-battle-ix-division-2-round-1-kos-mos-vs-dunban-vs
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5229-character-battle-ix-division-2-round-2-phoenix-vs-vincent-vs

At the time people blamed Phoenix > Vincent on the hilarious picture, and that probably contributed, but look at his earlier match. 60% on KOS-MOS in 2013 is just not a near-elite level performance and that's assuming you don't try to argue Xeno-LFF or something. KOS-MOS is probably around the fodder-line at best so yeah that looks pretty damn bad for Vincent!

Also, if you look at Phoenix's round 1 performance, he got 55% on Marth. I don't think very many folks would take KOS-MOS over Marth these days. As crazy as it sounds, Vincent may have been around Phoenix's level regardless of the picture. Keep in mind that Phoenix (and Marth) may have been as strong as ever in 2013. And it makes it seem much more likely that Vincent wasn't SFFed by Sephiroth in the 2010 character contest.

Would any of you take Vincent over Tifa these days?
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Nah, I'd roll with Tifa > Vincent nowadays. I'd have probably taken a chance on it way back when, too.
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swirIdude posted...

Be wary, friends, for when Knuckles is announced for Smash 5, he will defeat Solid Snake, once and for all!

Not if Solid Snake isn't in Smash 5.
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Smash 4 likely helped Mega Man in 13.

Serveral characters only got in the 07 and 08 contests due to Brawl.
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HaRRicH posted...

swirIdude posted...

Be wary, friends, for when Knuckles is announced for Smash 5, he will defeat Solid Snake, once and for all!

Not if Solid Snake isn't in Smash 5.

But that's how Knuckles would win a voting contest against Solid Snake on the GameFAQs home page.
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