Board 8 > The Show EP 1 - The Glorious Return of GotD! Breaking down the bracket w/ Leon

(+) Yeah! (+)

DKs biggest advantage is THAT FACE factor

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KamikazePotato posted...

Okay, now that the bracket is up, going to listen to Part 2. Didn't want my opinions to be influenced because I'm bad at trusting my own opinions.

Glad I did, because you guys might've convinced me to switch to Berseria! And hey, Indie Glass Ceiling shoutout.

I stuck on to Hollow even though The Show recommended Berseria

Hollow Knight is just a big enough name in the indie scene, especially being a Metroidvania which are popular games here.

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I wouldn't say that. It's a far cry going from getting more than doubled by Kirby to almost beating Big Boss, which is what Crash did. DK maybe, but when it came down to it he still got demolished against characters people actually cared about. Pac-Man...sure.

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hylianknight3 posted...

DKs biggest advantage is THAT FACE factor

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5wPgvks1CmI/hqdefault.jpg

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Early vote totals from this contest so far:

1693 raw votes at the end of the first hour of voting. Roughly 66.27% of those votes are from registered users, which is similar to the first day of matches from the 2018 contest (65.86% registered users). Expect the percentage of registered user votes during the first hour to drop over the next several days as more casuals and outsiders learn about the contest.

Based on the distribution of votes over the course of an entire day for matches with an 8:00 PM EST starting time, we are on track to finish with about 14500 raw votes in all 4 matches today. This is about 3100 less raw votes compared to Day 1 of the 2018 contest, but the forced voting in all 4 matches has made a return for this contest. It is the forced voting that may be hurting our vote totals early in the contest. Though it should be noted that the first day or two can sometimes get lower vote totals before picking up later in the round. The first 2 days of the 2018 contest had notably lower vote totals than the rest of round 1.

With an estimate of 14500 raw votes for the first day of matches, we are on track to get 1841500 votes for the entire contest, which is below the original tiebreaker range of 1900000 to 2300000. I am hoping that we will see an uptick in votes once we get past the growing pains of the first day or two of matches, and especially once we make it to round 2 and the turbo fodder is eliminated.
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Aside: I maintain that Nier 1 is the precursor to all the Dad Main Character With Questionable Morals video games that have popped up in this decade. It beat them all to the punch and got no credit for it!

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KamikazePotato posted...

I wouldn't say that. It's a far cry going from getting more than doubled by Kirby to almost beating Big Boss, which is what Crash did. DK maybe, but when it came down to it he still got demolished against characters people actually cared about. Pac-Man...sure.

well being forced to vote in every match will probably help DKC here more than DMC5...!

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Leon is correct. Everyone who nominated Destiny needs to be publicly shamed.

I'm not sure if I still stand by Stardew Valley being the strongest indie game, but I do think it'll be up there and has a shot at that #1 spot.

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I'll never get over how badly Street Fighter V does in every poll it's in.

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"Who is DANA? Why is she in all caps?"

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This has become the 'yoblazer spits hot takes' podcast. I'm okay with that.

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Aside from the mixed reception I've seen, I'll be honest and say that the main reason I never gave MGS5 a chance is because of no David Hayter. Snake has an extremely iconic voice and it wasn't there. I think that's an understated part of why people didn't connect with it.

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For about 15 minutes, there was a glitch on the homepage that caused BotW's match to appear in the PotD slot instead of the actual poll that is now on the homepage. As a result of this glitch, the BotW match has about 190 more votes than the other 3 matches running today. In terms of raw vote totals, it's about 120 more votes than the other 3 matches. This could be taken as a sign that the forced voting in all 4 matches (if you use the contest voting form) is actually hurting vote totals of all 4 matches running on the same day.

During the 15 minute time block from 1:00 AM to 1:15 AM EST, the overall votes for the BotW match was 57.52% registered users. For comparison, the Halo: Reach match had 58.17% registered users during that same time period. So not significantly different from the other matches that didn't appear in the PotD slot. Among the votes that had to be submitted from the PotD slot (estimated at 113 votes), registered users made up 56.64% of those votes. So the PotD slot only slightly favored anonymous users.
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Way Too Soon Early Snap Judgments

• 4 way forced voting? I still call it a BAD DECISION for a bracket with this many low-playrate entrants, but I'll allow it since it'll be good for votals... and since I was also counting on it for my picks
• holy heckdogs, look out for the Indies! it's clear I didn't afford Hollow Knight enough respect, but overall I'm going to call this a good result for my picks as it shows people are applying the "Heard Good Things About" to their choices instead of just shrugging and clicking the series name they're more familiar with. time to fire up the Cuphead > GTA5 hype train!
• despite the loss, LiS keeping it this respectable is only strengthening my resolve on both the Strong Indies and Heard Good Things > Series Recognition fronts
• really strong percentage for BotW when you consider how hard it is to go over 85% against anything* these days. but... I really didn't expect FF15 to be able to hang within ~10% of it. maybe Edith Finch has a lower playrate than I anticipated

* except Draven


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KamikazePotato posted...

Aside from the mixed reception I've seen, I'll be honest and say that the main reason I never gave MGS5 a chance is because of no David Hayter. Snake has an extremely iconic voice and it wasn't there. I think that's an understated part of why people didn't connect with it.

There was hardly any voice at all there!

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Ngamer64 posted...

despite the loss, LiS keeping it this respectable is only strengthening my resolve on both the Strong Indies and Heard Good Things > Series Recognition fronts

Nah, I think this says more about how low Halo's stock is nowadays than anything else.

Ngamer64 posted...

really strong percentage for BotW when you consider how hard it is to go over 85% against anything* these days. but... I really didn't expect FF15 to be able to hang within ~10% of it. maybe Edith Finch has a lower playrate than I anticipated

Yeah, I didn't expect this site to be big into walking simulators.

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I still feel good about Hollow Knight > FFXIV despite the percentages. I'd take Berseria over Edith Finch in a heartbeat.

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azuarc posted...

I still feel good about Hollow Knight > FFXIV despite the percentages. I'd take Berseria over Edith Finch in a heartbeat.

Well yeah, but Berseria would have to double Edith Finch.

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You said people were sick and tired of Walking Dead.
And now it's on its way to deliver an Ulti-Style Blowout on Bastion.

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Thenenen posted...

And now it's on its way to deliver an Ulti-Style Blowout on Bastion.

Yeah, about that...



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Pleasantly surprised.

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Registered/Anonymous user voting stats - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kFS3SfH6sAhPdS85H7BpuFIkr9SayeF7AhMw-wrEBng/pub

So far, Day 1 of this contest had an unusually high total of 55.09% of the votes coming from registered users. In the 2018 contest, Day 1 had 50.18% registered users. A potential explanation for the higher percentage of registered user votes is centered around the forced voting in all matches, which would be a turn off to the anonymous users while the registered users are more dedicated voters. We also had an unusually long bracket entry period of about 4 weeks, which is reflected in the higher number of contest entries compared to the last contest (8702 vs. 7221) so you have more potential users who are invested in being active voters in the contest.
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Day Two Snap Reactions

* hooooray, the Rise of the Indies is confirmed! now granted, I'm sure much of this can be contributed to TWD's critical reputation (for both the show and games) falling off a cliff, as I mentioned live (and I shouldn't have let Leon and yo talk me out of it!), but when you combine this with the good showings for Hollow Knight and LiS, the trend seems undeniable
* especially since Bastion isn't even considered high tier when it comes to KP's Indie Glass Ceiling theory. people have Heard Good Things about it though, and they're aware how much opinion has soured on TWD, and that seems to be making all the difference. the sky's the limit for all indies with good reputations from here out!
* wowza, that was a powerful Bracket Vote in the opening 3-4 minutes. as Luster just mentioned, our registered users and bracket creator numbers are way up; we're going to have to take that into account for any debated matches going forward where the lower seed was the clear favorite. unless we want egg on our faces, like Kleenex is currently wiping off!


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I dunno where the glass ceiling on indie games is, but Bastion's definitely one of the upper indie games. Maybe not as beloved as the two Knights or Stardew Valley, but it's probably on par with SMB.

Suffice it to say, an indie game-only bracket might be really interesting to watch shake out. We had one on the board, but that's a very limited cross sample.

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Life is Strange is published by Square! It's not indie!

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Leonhart4 posted...

Life is Strange is published by Square! It's not indie!

It certainly wasn't developed by them. Although there is that one joke line where the MC says that she doesn't care what anyone thinks; the Spirits Within was a great movie.

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Dontnod developed Life is Strange and while they're not a huge developer, they're hardly indie. They have 166 employees currently.

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azuarc posted...

It certainly wasn't developed by them. Although there is that one joke line where the MC says that she doesn't care what anyone thinks; the Spirits Within was a great movie.

No but it was developed by Dontnod, a fairly large studio. Pretty much the only thing it has in common with indie games is that it launched download-only, which matters less than ever now and it got a physical release pretty quickly.

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OrangeCrush980 posted...

Dontnod developed Life is Strange and while they're not a huge developer, they're hardly indie. They have 166 employees currently.

That describes Larian, and most people generally consider the Divinity games to be indie as well. They've also been at it a lot longer.

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Yes I use the term Indie loosely, and I'll never tighten up so you'll have to get used to it!


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Still have one hour left of Part 2 to get through.

Nier Automata's plot is really good. I think it's much more GameFAQs' wheelhouse than Devil May Cry, but I do agree that 2B will be stronger than her game.

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Woo, KPStats shoutout from Leon!

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Us stats people have to stick together...!

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Yo definitely led you guys the right direction in hyping Celeste. I agreed with all that even before the last few days showed that indies are legit. If Rayman still wins at this point I'd be very surprised.

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Agree with Yo on Dark Souls not being as universally liked as people may think it is. Its fanbase is very devoted but the game isn't for everyone.

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I miss the Smash Dojo.

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Extremely accurate callout from Leon to the Melee fanbase.

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Does Celeste beat HGSS? It might, right?
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If 2B really id stronger than her game thats interesting given the way the games story uses her iconic status, and thats all I will say about that!

Still the GOAT in video game storytelling.

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Team Rocket Elite posted...

Does Celeste beat HGSS? It might, right?

I think you got a long way to go for an indie game, even one of the strongest ones like Celeste, to take on Pokemon, even a possibly much weaker version. Especially since Celeste has to be deriving a lot of strength from being on Switch.

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I actually checked Celeste's GotY results again since that post:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7471-best-of-2018-game-of-the-year

That's not that good and it came out on every system at the same time so no "it was a PC exclusive" excuse this time. Should still be enough to beat Rayman.
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*rubs Borderlands 2 all over himself*

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Highlights from Day 2's matches:

Huge splits between registered and anonymous users was the defining trend from yesterday's matches. With more than a 7% difference between registered and anonymous users in the Monster Hunter and Sekiro matches, we are officially in territory that only appeared twice during the entire 2018 contest (one of them being a rallied match). Aloy/D.Va and Monika/Wario were the only 2 matches in 2018 to have more than a 7% difference between registered and anonymous users.

The Walking Dead/Bastion had about a 6% difference, while Dragon Quest XI/Trails SC was about a 4.5% difference.

Going off what we've seen in the first 2 days, I think the forced voting in all matches is the biggest root cause behind the huge splits between registered and anonymous users. Registered users are much more dedicated voters who are far more likely to put up with the forced voting to vote for their favorite games, while anonymous users may be getting turned off by the forced voting and simply refusing to vote on some days. This is certainly evident in the higher percentage of registered user votes in this contest compared to 2018.

Characters were much easier to vote for as you can base your vote on character design alone if you aren't interested in researching more information about the character such as their back story or personality (which some people factor into their votes). Games are harder to vote for as they generally requires hands on exposure with the game to make a properly informed decision on which game to vote in each match, as the other alternative would be watching gameplay footage of the game on Youtube or another site.
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LusterSoldier posted...

Registered users are much more dedicated voters who are far more likely to put up with the forced voting to vote for their favorite games, while anonymous users may be getting turned off by the forced voting and simply refusing to vote on some days.

That doesn't explain why all the bracket favorites skewed strongly towards registered users, even in the match the bracket favorite lost.

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"I don't know either game so if I have to vote I I'll just follow my bracket"

That might be why bracket voting seems to be so prevalent.
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https://twitter.com/NieR_JPN/status/1244152414216663041

pls dont kill my bracket

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Registered users are more likely to actually fill out a bracket in the first place probably

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pjbasis posted...

Registered users are more likely to actually fill out a bracket in the first place probably

It's not just that; you literally have to register to even be able to fill out a bracket. This is also the first contest with more brackets submitted than registered voters (even though some of the former are from alts). Combine that with the average voter having less experience with this field than any before, and bracket votes should be having a bigger impact on these splits and results in general than ever before, just as transience postulated.

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GTM posted...

https://twitter.com/NieR_JPN/status/1244152414216663041

pls dont kill my bracket

Eh, that's the original Nier, not Automata.

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