Board 8 > [VGMC] Video Game Music Contest Topic 5 -- Results and Discussion

(+) Yeah! (+)

Results, day 106:
P-R-O-G-R-A-M < Desire Below (Flow), 13-33
Rave On > Who Am I?, 26-20

Kirby: Planet Robobot lost because we were too busy arguing over the song title.
Alone in the Dark lost because, well...it was alone in the dark.

And now we're onto round 4 and retirement begins!

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we are in the worst timeline

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P-R-O-G-R-A-M? More like O-W-N-E-D!
Who Am I? OWNED!

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I'd suggest people who have backups of older brackets start backporting them to challonge lol
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Retirement round hype! To get an idea of the remaining song strengths in a brief but fun way, I took the sums of their votes-for and votes-against across three matches (just two for Midnight Lady) and sorted by their ratio of owned votes. Obviously, some matches had more voters participate than others, but sums give big and impressive numbers!

"Averaging a tripling" tier
-(Isoleucine)-: 102-31 (C)

"Averaging a doubling" tier
Dungeon - Geofront 4: 90-36 (D)
Fire Island Volcano: 95-38 (D)
Rude Buster: 97-46 (A)
-[Deoxyribose]-: 97-47 (A)

"Averaging 1.5x the opponent" tier
Massive X: 83-42 (C)
YO-KAI Disco (Hell's Entrance World): 88-45 (D)
Moonstruck Blossom: 87-46 (B)
DNF FW15C (ALL PHASE MIX): 85-45 (C)
TIGAR (All Phase Mix): 90-51 (A)
Desire Below (Flow): 85-50 (D)
Apostle's Maraud: 89-55 (A)
The Merciless Savior: 81-51 (C)
The Wyrm's Jewelbox: 76-49 (D)
Scars of FAUNA: 84-56 (A)
Akeldama: 78-52 (D)

"May have had a close shave" tier
The Filthy Mind (Theme of the Hive Mind): 79-53 (B)
An Endless Desert: 89-62 (A)
Second Dark Matter Battle: 74-53 (C)
Partizans: 79-57 (B)
Flotage (Stage3-B): 74-58 (B)
Thermosphere: 72-57 (B)
Rave On: 76-61 (D)
Pressure Cooker: 71-58 (C)
Burning Force Medley: 73-60 (C)
Classroom: 69-59 (C)
Endeavour: 76-66 (B)
GUERRANT-OFENZA-SUPRONT-UNNE: 73-65 (A)
Sky Tower: 70-63 (B)
Midnight Lady: 46-42 (B)
EXEC_Z/.: 71-65 (A)

"Got doubled in R2 but came back through WC" tier
Credits: 60-64 (D)

In bracket order, top 2 bolded:

Rude Buster: 97-46
Scars of FAUNA: 84-56
Apostle's Maraud: 89-55
TIGAR (All Phase Mix): 90-51
GUERRANT-OFENZA-SUPRONT-UNNE: 73-65
An Endless Desert: 89-62
-[Deoxyribose]-: 97-47
EXEC_Z/.: 71-65

Partizans: 79-57
Flotage (Stage3-B): 74-58
Endeavour: 76-66
Sky Tower: 70-63
Moonstruck Blossom: 87-46
Thermosphere: 72-57
The Filthy Mind (Theme of the Hive Mind): 79-53
Midnight Lady: 46-42

Classroom: 69-59
The Merciless Savior: 81-51
-(Isoleucine)-: 102-31
DNF FW15C (ALL PHASE MIX): 85-45
Burning Force Medley: 73-60
Massive X: 83-42
Second Dark Matter Battle: 74-53
Pressure Cooker: 71-58

Akeldama: 78-52
Credits: 60-64
Dungeon - Geofront 4: 90-36
Fire Island Volcano: 95-38 (these are exactly tied and facing each other!)
YO-KAI Disco (Hell's Entrance World): 88-45
The Wyrm's Jewelbox: 76-49
Desire Below (Flow): 85-50
Rave On: 76-61

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Wow, 46 votes yesterday huh? And wow, what a demolishing DBF did upon PROGRAM.

At first I didn't believe you regarding Geofront 4 and Fire Island being exactly tied, but they are!

I will shortly be posting rating statistics involving all the users who have rated or ranked music in this contest! I have collected virtually everything that has been posted in the match topics. Some users only rated the 64 tracks that made it to Round 3, so I will be compiling stats for R3+, as well as for all 192. If any of you would like to send me your complete or revised list of ratings or rankings, please do so! PM me. (some of you rated/ranked music, but didn't post all of them) Otherwise, I will just use the data I have collected and publish the stats over the next few days. I won't be publicizing users' individual rankings. I already have the complete list from Mycro, as well as the Round 1 list from deo.

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NFUN posted...

P-R-O-G-R-A-M? More like O-W-N-E-D!
Who Am I? OWNED!

ROLF

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Haste_2 posted...

At first I didn't believe you regarding Geofront 4 and Fire Island being exactly tied, but they are!

5:2 ratios are funny like that.

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PIayer_0 posted...

Retirement round hype!

no thanks

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xp1337 posted...

we are in the worst timeline

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Results, day 107
Rude Buster > Scars of FAUNA, 22-21
Apostle's Maraud < TIGAR (All Phase Mix), 21-22

Serious photo finishes courtesy of the late crew. Congratulations to our first two retirees.

jubeat saucer fulfill lost because people preferred Scars of FLORA.
Raiden V lost because you can only go back in time and screw up with Shao Kahn so many times.

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Lame
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Congrats to Blue Reflection and Deltarune for their first retirees
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VGMC? More like OWNED!


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Nononono! How heartbreaking to see them both lose by one vote, especially Apostle's Maraud. Congrats to Rude Buster and TIGAR, nonetheless. They are great pieces of music.

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Hbthebattle posted...

Congrats to Blue Reflection and Deltarune for their first retirees

It should have been Sayonara, but I take it.

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I can't speak for anyone else, but I for one will not be nominating or supporting anything developed or published by Square-Enix next year. (And chances are we wouldn't be able to find an upload of it, anyway!)

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I don't want to make any promises like that when Bravely Default 2 is coming out...
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Is Revo doing the music?

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azuarc posted...

Is Revo doing the music?

yeah
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azuarc posted...

I can't speak for anyone else, but I for one will not be nominating or supporting anything developed or published by Square-Enix next year. (And chances are we wouldn't be able to find an upload of it, anyway!)

considering that includes drakengard/nier that is not a road i am prepared to walk down

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Results, day 108:
GUERRANT-OFENZA-SUPRONT-UNNE > An Endless Desert, 24-20
-[Deoxyribose]- > EXEC_Z/., 25-19

Alto's Odyssey lost because it got taken out by the sopranos.
Ar Tonelico Qoga lost because we're still determined not to advance another Exa_Pico song after EXSPHERE.

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An Endless Desert? More like An Ended Desert!
EXEC_Z/.? More like OWNE_D/!!

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My personal average R1 loser ratings: 7.05
Average R2 loser ratings: 7.48
Average R3 loser ratings: 7.86
Average score of everything that's made R4: 8.2

Not bad. Okay, time to revisit how everyone's nominations are doing at the end of Round 3! The following users have nominations remaining:

deo: 4 of 7
cako: 1 of 6
dowolf: 2 of 4
FL81: 1 of 2
Haste: 2 of 6
Hbthebattle: 1 of 2
kaonashi: 2 of 4
Kentucky Cried Ficken: 1 of 3
Kiko: 2 of 2
Eglat: 1 of 3
NFUN: 1 of 10
Pablo: 1 of 5
Prody: 1 of 4
Raetsel: 1 of 2
Mycro: 6 of 7
Tsunami: 1 of 7
xarlable: 1 of 7
xp: 3 of 8

55 users had something make the bracket. Just 18 of them have a nomination to make at least Round 4. Just seven users have at least two nominations knocking on the retirement door. Wow @ Mycro! He didn't lose anything since the demise of Hinagiku in round 1 until just yesterday. Also, it's notable that Kikoman hasn't lost either of his songs yet, Flotage and YO-KAI Disco! What a shame he only voted in a few matches early on. And...er, TRE and P0 had quite a few noms, but unfortunately all are out.


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Haste_2 posted...

And...er, TRE and P0 had quite a few noms, but unfortunately all are out.

RIP
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Haste_2 posted...

NFUN: 1 of 10

pain

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I don't know what Square Enix did to warrant a boycott, but I'm pretty sure that they published Remember Me, and I will have my Nilin the Memory Hunter in a VGMC.
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KCF0107 posted...

I don't know what Square Enix did to warrant a boycott, but I'm pretty sure that they published Remember Me, and I will have my Nilin the Memory Hunter in a VGMC.

Killed SupraDarky

and history disagrees with your assertion

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Haste_2 posted...

55 users had something make the bracket.

yeah sure rub it in

NFUN posted...

Killed SupraDarky

That makes me sad.

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I'm assuming that list is only considering original nominations right? Because I have 2 or 3 songs left that I supported during noms I'm pretty sure, although all the songs for which I was the first nomination are out.
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Yes.

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Oh my god, and I thought my 0/6 noms were bad, TRE's already at 0/9 before the retirement round! I really liked his noms too...my votes in their matches were 13 for and 3 against

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Would've been 2/3 if Kao hadn't beaten me to the punch on nominating Wyrm's Jewelbox!

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Emphasizing who was the original nominator and not who supported a song leads to some mentalities I'm not terribly keen on. Not only does it foster a me-against-them vantage, but it makes it feel like your contributions to the contest are even more marginalized and irrelevant at a stage when normally only an eighth of the songs would remain. (This year, it's a sixth.) I've been listening to this "my song" perspective throughout the contest, even indulged it at times, and I honestly don't think it's healthy.

Pre-contest, there were 40 or 50 songs I felt I could get behind. I think that number's down to maybe one hand or less, but the point is that I do still have songs I feel okay or even good about, in spite of a ~50% voting success record and the overwhelming brunt of the picks in my predictions bracket gone after round 2. If I looked at it from the perspective here, though, this would suggest that I've been "eliminated" from the contest and that I should probably just stop caring. Or be bitter and angry about the results, and I certainly don't need any help with that.

Please try to remember that statistically speaking, on average, if you were successful at bracketify-ing 18 of the 20 songs you applied a "nomination" toward, (which includes your supports -- this isn't Best OST,) you should have three of them left. Some people will have none and some will have six, but this is the norm and what you should consider expected. Stamping one name on each song, while it may be warranted in some cases because that person discovered the song and brought it to the board, is not fair to yourself or anyone else. Getting a song into the bracket is a team effort that took a minimum of three people and probably five. To say nothing of any song you like, but didn't happen to support.

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I agree, and besides original nominations were only really a thing for BOST and VGMCX

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people talking like that is fine and has been around forever so i don't really see the big deal; even before vgmc10 when there was an explicit difference between noms/supports, i had a very clear mental difference between the noms that i introduced to the pool and the noms that i supported of others.

I think it's ideal that in statistics, both ways of counting are addressed. but like also you really have things like "fl81 was going to nom The Wyrm's Jewelbox anyways and kao just did it first so he's not counted / mycro was going to nom Thermosphere anyways and deo just did it first", and i think anyone who's observing knows that because of things like that, these stats are just approximations.

Stats are interesting, and a variety of ways to look at them helps address all the ways they can be interesting! How haste just did it is one way, but there's other ways! and someone could post them if they wanted to! I've seen people complain about not showing up on player0's compatibility graphs, but i offered a solution that'd change how it's viewed to make it so that by design it'd connect literally everyone no matter what, without being visually cluttering (if you want that explained again i can do so but i'm getting off topic)

Maybe the reason i feel how i do is because i spent like all of vgmc3-12 just taking the hits in regards to almost never getting anything i introduced to even round 2...and now have the absurd luck of seeing 6/7 of my "initial noms" up for retiree status (I'm so happy about gosu!!!!!). So to me, thinking about it this way was never really a shock that made me feel "eliminated" after all the stuff i shared got shot out, because it was almost always that bad. My expectation was always that I'd be statistically unlucky to a point that was mathematically absurd against odds, the default assumption is nothing i share gets past round 1 and i still have fun with the contest. of course instead 13-14 gave me the special treat of seeing stuff i've shared or supported get really far, and I'm cherishing that; but also have the perspective of that past expectation to not consider this position a default.

KCF has the infamous "curse" of the things he presents to the community never retiring even if often getting to round 4. and he's still with us, still sharing music that many of us enjoy; whether or not this year continues his curse, he's made an impact that has been valuable, no matter how you look at statistics. No matter what we define as the "retired" status. and the fact that KCF is the person who is the only reason I've ever heard the track "Nilin the Memory Hunter" is significant. I would probably have never heard it if he hadn't repeatedly injected his personal interest into the noms phase, and that track is a significant part of my life. I hear glitched up orchestral music in random songs now and think "whoa it's doing the Nilin thing!", like that's a big deal. KCF put a dent in how I mentally articulate the music I hear! So I do not want to devalue that concept, the idea that specific people are responsible for why I've been introduced to some of the most important music to me that I've heard (I really valued kao's "first encountered: _" tidbits he was sharing through all of round 3 for this reason as well. put a neat focus on how we come to be introduced to the music we hear, and how often it is these contests or specific individuals who shared the music that are responsible for it)

I do think that paying attention to who supports is important too though! kaonashi1 mentioned recently how he noticed Like a Night of Falling Stars from Mushihimesama in vgmc12 because of me showing support for it; I was not the original nominator (i forget who was), and the collaborative effort of everyone involved was why it got to shine just enough in noms phase to get into the contest, and be remembered by those who have interest in it (even if it lost in r1 lol who cares that's not the point)

idk what i'm rambling about i just think "individual people introducing a track to the community" is an important thing to acknowledge, just as is acknowledging all the other ways we interact with each other and influence each others life in whatever small ways. and I don't really agree that it's "unhealthy" to focus on, i mean anything can be unhealthy to fixate on, but that's on the individuals who intake the information, rather than the methods of doing statistics itself. and I think differentiating original/support status is important when it comes to stats/discussion for that reason (even if i'm like the most anti-vgmc10-2phasesystem person here lol) sorry for long aimless post
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i hate to be the "it's just a music contest" guy but if anything, i think it's a bit unhealthy to get "bitter and angry" over the results, personally!

i don't know, despite having voted in these things since VGMC1 i'm not THAT invested in them. i just think it's fun to listen to a bunch of VGM songs every day and vote in the matches, i don't even pay all that much attention to the results lol

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azuarc posted...

Some people will have none

I think that's also me. I think my supports are 0/14 and they didn't even survive the first half of Round 3. >_>
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I'm not trying to stop these discussions. I'm a numbers guy. I love seeing statistics and analysis. I just want to make sure we keep proper perspective.

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the real crisis facing vgmc is the trend towards teasing vote counts in ongoing matches

y'all need to cut that out

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xp1337 posted...

the real crisis facing vgmc is the trend towards teasing vote counts in ongoing matches

y'all need to cut that out

Yeah, that's one of the worst things about the discord people. No restraint there.
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If this is something that is seen as a problem at all then there needs to be a hard rule about any sort of ongoing match discussion and the updating tally needs to be taken out of the Google Sheet. Right now the impression given off both by the rules and by the people in the contest as a collective is that it's not a problem as long as you aren't deliberately being obnoxious about it.

Personally I don't see it as a problem and think things are fine as-is.
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My hopes ride on my last remaining support in Fire Island Volcano!

I like getting invested because I'm the kind of person to yell at the TV when my sports team loses, then happily come back the next day to do it again. Each person will have their own view of the contest, though. VGM has become so personal to me that I enjoy getting emotional over artificial stories like original nominators, big comebacks, and match upsets, and in a year I'll look back fondly on the highs and lows of this niche contest hosted on a relic of the world wide web.

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I mean the rules explicitly forbid tallies because knowledge of the current margins can influence votes. Making statements that imply a match is within striking distance is basically the same thing just without providing the hard numbers and is generally pretty obvious in what it's saying.

...Discussion re: who's winning/losing has always been if not outright banned, then frowned upon?

As for the tally, if making it hidden would make it easier to accept, then fine. Though I think the extra step of having to go to the Google Doc for it *should* be enough to dissuade people from using that info to act. But there's a difference between being aware of the score and posting about it. You can't prevent the former. You totally can prevent the latter.

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If we're talking in terms of things we supported, I've already got one retiree in Rude Buster, and I'm guaranteed another due to Moonstruck/Thermosphere
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xp1337 posted...

I mean the rules explicitly forbid tallies because knowledge of the current margins can influence votes.

What I'm saying is that the message being communicated right now is "This is not ok but literally anything else is totally fine." I don't think I'm alone in this either as I am probably more cautious than many when it comes to talking about ongoing matches.
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I think there is a difference between posting a vote tally in the voting topic and keeping a vote tally in azuarc's spreadsheet. I feel that it's non-regulars who are more likely to take advantage of a vote tally, and they're less likely to be aware of it being on the main spreadsheet. It would be nice if people didn't discuss current vote tallies in discord, though.

Regarding original nominations successes, it was just meant to be fun, not meant to elevate anyone over anyone else. Even if all my nominations lost I would have still kept doing it. Truth to be told, if I did stats for all nominations including supports, results would be a lot more homogeneous, thus it wouldn't be as fun. Then again, maybe I should include both numbers...


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Honestly, I don't read posts most of the time. I just tally the votes and move on. (And other people have been tallying this year, too!) So if there has been discussion about the match in the topic, I'm not in support of that. I don't mind talking about it in Discord, but that's mostly because I'm assuming mostly anyone who's reading those remarks in Discord has already voted. However, that's also one of the reasons why I, personally, don't usually count the votes until at least the afternoon.

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Unofficial Results
Partizans > Flotage (Stage3-B), 23-21
Endeavour > Sky Tower, 22-21

I am so mad
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