Board 8 > Character Battle X Contest Analysis Crew - Part 7

(+) Yeah! (+)

I would say....

Zelda
Sephiroth
Tifa
Pikachu
Ganondorf
Bowser
Alucard
Auron

Tifa's third (just barely above Pikachu) because... I feel like Luigi is a decent amount above Bowser and Yoshi, given his impressive scores on Frog and Edgeworth.

transience posted...

the mere rumor of Geno being in Smash is probably worth more than Mario RPG already

Wait... I thought the roster for Smash has been 100% confirmed? Unless there's a plan to get Geno into the game at a later time?
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There's going to be DLC afterward, and none of them have been announced except for Piranha Plant. One of them is supposed to be a Square character, and most people think it's gonna be Geno.
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:-O There is hope after all....
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Geno is pretty much just a joke at this point, and it hasnt been funny since it peaked with Smash Kingdom having Geno blow up Japan.

If Smash 5 really is gonna have another Square character in it, then its probably gonna be one of five characters: Tifa, Sephy, Lightning, Sora, or Noctis.

Or maybe theyll lean more on the Enix side and piss off everybody this side of the Pacific with a Dragon Quest character.
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Logience posted...

Geno is pretty much just a joke at this point, and it hasnt been funny since it peaked with Smash Kingdom having Geno blow up Japan.

If Smash 5 really is gonna have another Square character in it, then its probably gonna be one of five characters: Tifa, Sephy, Lightning, Sora, or Noctis.

Or maybe theyll lean more on the Enix side and piss off everybody this side of the Pacific with a Dragon Quest character.

Characters who have never appeared on a Nintendo system?

Possible, but I feel Crono stands a better chance than Sephiroth Lightning, or Noctis.
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Logience posted...

If Smash 5 really is gonna have another Square character in it, then its probably gonna be one of five characters: Tifa, Sephy, Lightning, Sora, or Noctis.

Or maybe theyll lean more on the Enix side and piss off everybody this side of the Pacific with a Dragon Quest character.

Crono wouldn't be far off that criteria if we go Dragon Quest -> Enix -> Akira Toriyama -> Chrono Trigger -> Square

Crono > Link confirmed.
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Today we give thanks for bumps.
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Im finding this bracket really uncomfortable to put together. I think most of us here believe that, unless a match is 51/49 close, the results will likely repeat. but I have no idea how voters will take to any rematches a week later. I wish the losers bracket relocated characters to opposite sides of the bracket so we wouldnt see repeats.
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I've honestly tried to avoid rematches as much as possible when filling out my bracket, even if it means making a pick I wouldn't normally make.

All the same, I am kind of curious to see how much a rematch can swing if it's held relatively soon after the first one.
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I think this thing is going to go sideways. The losers bracket is even more volatile than four ways.. one weird result could totally screw up an entire side of the contest. that Mario/Seph match could be a nightmare.
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Yeah, that's true. One unexpected result can really change the direction since it affects multiple matches at once.
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I think rematches may be more inclined to swing the other way on the second meeting if they're reasonably close. My picks reflect that too. There aren't too many times that actually comes up though. Snake/Zelda/Sonic and Mario/Sephiroth are the main times to be wary. I think the rest of them aren't going to be close enough or aren't likely to rematch.

I think this is the format to really go for a Link upset in the finals though. Of course your only viable options there are like Cloud, Sephiroth, Snake, and at a stretch Sonic, cause Link SFFs the rest too hard.
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I hadnt really considered Link losing if he beats Mario, then loses to him in the rematch, does he get another shot?
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The final match is one shot only, not best two out of three if the winner's bracket winner loses.
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that's dumb. there'll surely be a rematch poll even if it's not for prizes. that'd be pretty hype, kinda like MGS4/Brawl.
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Doesn't Link SFF Sonic pretty darn badly
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Link SFFs everyone lets be fair
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Oh yeah

Forgot Link had met Sonic in 2010 I thought he'd always avoided him and there was hope (to be fair I called it a stretch because I suspected Link would SFF Sonic too) that Sonic could actually stand up to him. Guess not!
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I don't think Link would SFF Crono.
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Link has faced Crono a few times. He arguably does unless you don't think he SFFs Mario at all-- which to be fair has generally been accepted so I dunno.
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I mean Crono got into the 2008 final because Link SFF'd Mario and Samus but not him

I wouldn't take the 2008 final as evidence of anything because Crono obviously got LPF'd

I don't think their 1-on-1 match in 2004 was SFF, but it would certainly make Mario look stronger that year if it was...!
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I mean he definitely SFFs the others more but yeah I've always wondered why people accept the 2004 number at face value when Crono was strong enough to 53-47 Mario that year and he puts up only slightly better than the number Mario gets on Link in 2002. I guess you can argue 2002 Mario > 2004 Mario by a lot and he's just getting SFFed down to a close to 2004 value, since he did beat Cloud that year, rally/Sunshine release or not, but it's all kinda weird to me.

Now that 2008 number vs Link and Cloud is probably double SFF between Link and Cloud, since Snake's number is implying that Crono is adversely affecting Cloud as well.
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Eh, we saw Snake get LPF'd down to nothing in 2007, too, so I don't think that match means anything. It's just what happens when you have three characters fighting for a win and one character who has no chance.
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2008 was just a bandwagon. People saw Snake overcome Cloud last round and decided to roll with it. Remember that Snake was in the lead for a while before the day vote came!
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snake was a dirty cheater
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Lopen posted...

I mean he definitely SFFs the others more but yeah I've always wondered why people accept the 2004 number at face value when Crono was strong enough to 53-47 Mario that year and he puts up only slightly better than the number Mario gets on Link in 2002. I guess you can argue 2002 Mario > 2004 Mario by a lot and he's just getting SFFed down to a close to 2004 value, since he did beat Cloud that year, rally/Sunshine release or not, but it's all kinda weird to me.

I don't see anything wrong with Link's score on Crono that year. In 2005 Link was expected to get about the same score on Crono. But I do also think that Mario was stronger in 2002 than he was in '03/'04. I figure Link would have gotten nearly 70% on Mario in '04.
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I personally don't really buy last place factor as a thing that matters a lot. Not as the main reason. Like I think the 2007 showing by Snake could be

1. SFF from Link taking away his Nintendo boost
2. SFF from Cloud taking away his core MGS base
3. SFF from L-Block taking away his counter-culture appeal he has as a new result.

I mean he underperformed a little due to not being in the hunt I can buy that but I don't buy him suddenly being at his expected value if for example we were unable to see results until the end. Like I bet Master Chief holds up a lot better than him, for example.

That being said 2004 Crono vs 2002 Mario has always been the bigger question mark to me as to whether Crono gets SFFed or not. The values line up a little too neatly to think Crono gets off without suffering any ill effects. The 2008 four way certainly implies he gets less but yeah.
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Snake underperformed a ton.

Like you're trying to come up with a lot of reasons for Snake to perform worse that never happen to him otherwise as opposed to him just getting abandoned because he had no chance to win.
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He did but I'm not convinced most of that is due to LPF.
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LeonhartFour posted...

that never happen to him otherwise

Well we've seen cases of MGS and FF SFF a few times

Link and L-Block are completely unique situations because you're not often going to see Snake isolated from a Smash boost due to getting his core vote SFFed out or him to lose his freshness appeal, so yeah, you're not going to see that often. I just think you had a perfect storm for Snake to lose a lot of voting appeal-- I buy that more than a particularly huge amount of voters checking the results screen before voting. Like otherwise that'd be present in basically every multiway match where third/fourth place aren't in it, but they tend to line up more than you'd think.
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Lopen posted...

Well we've seen cases of MGS and FF SFF a few times

I'm talking specifically about Snake, not something like FFVII/MGS1 in 2004.
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Lopen posted...

Like otherwise that'd be present in basically every multiway match where third/fourth place aren't in it, but they tend to line up more than you'd think.

Eh, the key element is that there's a close fight for first (or second). It works just fine when the winner is obvious.

(Probably the main reason the last place person gets utterly abandoned is rallies, like what happened to Samus in Snake/Draven, but yeah)
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https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/955-east-division-round-1-solid-snake-vs-squall-leonhart

This is basically our only meeting of PSX FF and Snake pre-Smash and Squall completely shocked the next year.

Now Snake post-Smash as seen in 2010 is a different thing because he sorta has a bit more of his own appeal isolated from the PSX, and Snake post ZELDA AND FF ALWAYS WINZ has a bit more of his own appeal because he's seen as a fresh winner, but if you hit all three of those things at once I feel like he's not going to hold up as well.
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Eh, I don't take much out of that 2002 match because we don't know how strong Squall was before KH. It could've been an overperformance, but maybe it wasn't.
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Keep in mind that Snake getting hit by all those things at once is extremely rare-- I'm just saying four ways having a lot of weird intangibles that go into them at once makes more sense than just automatically discarding what happened to the last place guy as valid because he was abandoned.

Like the big thing that's a red flag to me as it relates to any sort of last place factor is how the match starts vs how it finishes. For instance in 2008 Crono started pretty evenly with Cloud. Cloud recovered after his bad board vote and made a run at Snake but Crono just... died. If it was all perceived results why did Cloud recover so much better than Crono did? Shouldn't Crono have been fighting with Cloud?

Now obviously you could argue that well Cloud got LPFed in the first hour only and Crono got 24 hours of it, but I still feel like Cloud starting at a very distant third there and recovering and Crono... not doing that, well, it implies something that isn't as simple and clean as one thing at work there.

I'm not saying it's not a factor but it's a pretty minor one I think.
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Eh, that's just the trends at work with Cloud and Crono, as well as just the natural difference in strength. The beginning of the match is Cloud's worst time and Crono's best.
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I know that. I'm just saying Cloud should've been abandoned early in the match too because he wasn't appearing to be remotely in it so Cloud should've been LPFed too unless you're arguing all the voters know vote trends. It should've been Snake/Link trading hands. Yet Cloud recovers and almost overtakes Snake (despite Snake being much closer to Link than Cloud is to him for the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the match)
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Eh, I think Cloud's natural strength makes it too hard for him to get completely abandoned (or at least it used to). He was getting tripled by L-Block for the first 2-3 hours in 2007.
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Anyway point is Occam's Razor doesn't always imply one factor is more likely than three. I could make up some arbitrary CWFF (Contest Winner Fatigue Factor) to explain why Samus was eliminated first in the six way after beating Snake in 2006. Or I could just say she got SFFed by Mario and by Link. Two causes is more than one cause but they're things we've seen before so of course you're going to pin it on SFF. I think we've seen Snake have cute results when he (or his games) was in matches with FF, was boosted by Smash, and was regarded as a plucky underdog counterculture pick that all three "SFF" sources I theorized up there make some amount of sense.

I just think we'd see last place factor more consistently if it was actually a major thing. The implications there are that people consistently click view results before voting. I don't deny that there's a subset of people that do that that could cause slight underperformances by someone who's trailing by a lot but I doubt your typical voter cares enough to throw a few extra clicks into their voting process.
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how many posts in a row can leon start with "Eh, "
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Well, like I said, I think a lot of it is the result of rallying because those people are going there to vote specifically for one of the two characters fighting it out for first place. Naturally, the last place character is going to get an extremely small percentage of those new votes.
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Keltiq posted...

how many posts in a row can leon start with "Eh, "

Eh, why not one more.
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Well that's not last place factor that's something else.

Crono also underperforms relative to what you'd expect on Cloud there too. Unless you're saying Cloud was also being rallied?
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Also funny I brought up 2006 cause I think that whole run of matches is kinda interesting for thinking about how the combination of Link + Cloud can affect Snake. Like Smash boosted Snake can barely beat SFFed Sephiroth. To me that's actually pretty good evidence that Link + Cloud in tandem can do more damage to Snake than Cloud alone. Seph holds against SFF from Cloud relatively much better than a pairing out of Nintendo, but Cloud/Seph/Snake you have to figure Snake takes a commanding second place even in 2006.
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Lopen posted...

Well that's not last place factor that's something else.

Well, I think it's a contributing factor to what makes Last Place Factor a thing, although it's not the whole story. We've also seen voters be smart enough to abandon the weaker character within the same fanbase to help the stronger character win. There's a definite strategy in voting in a lot of these matches.
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Eh you are talking nice things here it seems.
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Don't forget Link vs. Crono 2007. Aka the first time the Noble Nine was broken.
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@Master_Moltar

You should post a sign-up topic for guest write-ups in round 1 of the Legends Bracket. The contest resumes on the night of November 26th, and we have less than 2 days before that happens.
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Yeah the window for sending guest write-ups is getting a little too short. We only have about 24 hours.

that means less time for guests to forget to do them lmao
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