Board 8 > How would they do in a contest? Day 612 ft Franklin Clinton, Graveler, Agatha

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is a topic to rate the contest strength of potential newcomers in the current contest environment.

I will pick the characters to rate and discuss for each day from user nominations - whoever the 3 most nominated characters are at that time. If there are more than 3 I will pick randomly. You can nominate any number of characters at any time, but you cannot nominate the same character twice.

All characters who were present in the 2018 Character Battle will NOT be eligible. Otherwise you can nominate any character that has appeared in video games; even comic book characters. This will exclude real-life athletes who have only appeared in long running sports series, however I will accept those who have their own games such as Shaq. I will accept nominations for iconic gaming duos too, if there is a compelling reason for both characters to be linked (either co-starring in a game ala Banjo & Kazooie, or always appearing together like Callie & Marie from Splatoon).

Each day will have a separate topic, and nominations will carry over. As far as actually rating the character's contest strength; I ask that users rank a characters potential strength with one of the following qualifiers - LAW Fodder, Low Fodder, Mid Fodder, High Fodder, Fodder Line, Low Midcarder, Midcarder, High Midcarder, Near Elite, Elite, LAW Tier (capable of beating Link). I will average all the ratings given to a character to come up with their final ranking. I have included a highlighted entrant from Character Battle X on each tier of the strength rankings below, to provide a baseline for each.

Note that LAW Fodder is meant to be a tier reserved for the weakest possible characters to put into a contest. A character will only be placed there if at least 3/4ths of the voters for that day agree on the LAW Fodder rating, and no ratings above Low Fodder are given. If either of those conditions are not met, the character will not be eligible for the LAW Fodder tier.

Current Character Strength Rankings: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P1AIhHywBiLd6VAMZMNEGX-HW2td8u1D0Iw_tzHsORw/edit?usp=sharing

Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-KnSBDzppzPK5Ug1zmx8_x0bG4tqFDMPPH2k8J3s8sk/edit?usp=sharing

If you feel that a character has been over or under-ranked, or if a new development has come up that would affect their contest strength, you may nominate them for a re-ranking. You may nominate one character per day for this, and 3 votes are needed to get them on the slate. One character with 3 votes will come up for re-ranking today.

Re-ranking Nomination List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6dx-tu-FD1rCxbX69eQwEzE7x1F6nNRNFochYHu1dc/edit?usp=sharing

Results from Day 611:

Ronald Mcdonald (M.C. Kids) is Low Fodder
Lance Bean (Contra) is Low Fodder
Bruno (Pokemon) is Low Fodder

Here is today's trio to rank:

Franklin Clinton (Grand Theft Auto V)
Graveler (Pokemon)
Agatha (Pokemon)

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Low Fodder for all today. Franklin is a GTA character - and not even the standout from his own game on top of that - while Graveler has nothing really going for it by Gen. 1 standards and Agatha is a one-and-done Kanto E4 member.

Also, while I'm not going to nominate any of these characters for reranking right away, I think it's at least worth discussing whether we've overranked any significant amount of the all-fictional upper echelons. For context's sake, here's the (abbreviated) rankings we currently have, with characters I think are likely overranked in italics:

Near Elite - Batman, Spider-Man
High Midcarder - Darth Vader, Goku
Midcarder - Ash Ketchum, Gary Oak, Luke Skywalker, The Joker, Vegeta, Wolverine
Low Midcarder - Captain America, Donatello, Gandalf, Han Solo, Harley Quinn, Harry Potter, Homer Simpson, Iron Man, James Bond, Magneto, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Superman, The Hulk, Yoda

There's a fair few others I'd also consider possibly overranked, but I'll stick to these for now. Basically (thanks to Para's prompting), I think it's worth questioning whether certain types of broader fictional media are truly as indelible to the average voter on such an insular site as we've assumed they are. On a related note, many of the characters I've highlighted have no particularly notable video game appearances.

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agree with Metalmind.

to address the high rated broad media characters, it's very possible that Batman and Spider-Man are overrated by a tier. The point was made in chat that their influence is at best equal to that of Goku. While they are probably liked better as characters than Goku, the sheer popularity of DBZ on the site likely holds him up anyway. Spidey might still hold up since recent Spider-Man games have been popular. Batman has. . . the upcoming Justice League Snyder cut : l

Like Ash to Red, I think Gary retains most of Blue's strength and will hold up. Unless we've overrated Blue as well.

Luke and Vader can probably move down a tier - neither of them have an impressive array of games to their name and I kind of think Luke's appearance in The Last Jedi did not do him any favors in terms of likeablity.

Gandalf can move down a tier and so can Obi-Wan, though the pure memeibility of the Star Wars prequels gives me pause on him. I'd keep Yoda and Harley where they are for now - I think the popularity of The Mandalorion helps Yoda, and Harley has a popular adult animated series of her own. Plus her portrayal in the DCU is praised despite the overall negative reception of the movies in general.

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Yeah, I was basically making the point in chat that out of all of these characters, the only one who I have total faith in to actually put up big numbers is Goku - mainly because the insular culture of this site largely trends towards Japanese media and away from western, but it's even more specific than that. It's hard to explain precisely what I mean, but I think that cultural identification is big with regards to what people prefer to vote for, and I think DBZ is really the only BIG property that feels like it culturally defines our in-group. The superhero subculture is enormous, larger than ours, but it doesn't really have the same overlap and I think gamers here are not quite so likely to flock towards someone like Batman.

I personally think that Goku's ceiling is high, I think he can challenge near-elite status, I think he's beloved and strongly identified with rather than merely widely liked and I can actually see a critical mass of voters pushing him over the top, especially as new blood. But someone like Batman feels like they're vulnerable to getting picked off by a midcarder that's more gamer-y. I could be very wrong of course, but it's just a theory I have. We'll probably never get to see whether or not it's the case of course..

Although I should add that I also think framing matters, it depends on if the contest is "best gaming character" or "best fictional character overall". The latter is much more fertile ground for superheroes and star wars - the former is not.

Agreed with low fodder for all today.
will think about the other stuff.

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half_silver28 posted...

Like Ash to Red, I think Gary retains most of Blue's strength and will hold up. Unless we've overrated Blue as well.

We have Blue as a Midcarder right now, which is one tier below where Red looked to be in 2018. That looks about right to me, considering the difference between the two characters' 2013 results plus the general protagonist vs. rival dynamics. In that case, it stands to reason Gary is likewise one tier below both Ash and Blue.

I'm also skeptical about how much new non-video game media matters on this site, given the insularity Para and I both hit upon. That especially applies to Harley Quinn, as I think neither her new show nor her DCCU appearances are particularly popular even in broader nerd culture, let alone here.

Second re-ranking Gandalf. Hey, this isn't quite right away! I did wait for some discussion first!

Paratroopa1 posted...

Although I should add that I also think framing matters, it depends on if the contest is "best gaming character" or "best fictional character overall". The latter is much more fertile ground for superheroes and star wars - the former is not.

I naturally agree with this, as I said in the B8 discord. For what it's worth, I believe all the character contests we've had have been referred to as "character battles". That seems like a pretty neutral framing for broader fictional characters on its own, though our history of video game-exclusive character contests might independently skew voters. I tend to think our existing ratings have aligned somewhere between that neutrality and the favorability of something like "all-fictional character battle", and I'm unsure whether that should actually be the case.

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MetalmindStats posted...

I'm also skeptical about how much new non-video game media matters on this site, given the insularity Para and I both hit upon. That especially applies to Harley Quinn, as I think neither her new show nor her DCCU appearances are particularly popular even in broader nerd culture, let alone here.

Not very much I don't think. I think that Marvel has at least some edge here, thanks to the MCU being so ubiquitously popular and thanks to Marvel vs Capcom - but even then I'm skeptical of someone like Iron Man being much higher than fodder line. I think Harley Quinn is high fodder at best.

The non-video game characters who I think are hands down definitely above fodder line are Goku, Batman, the Joker, Spider-Man, and Darth Vader. Maybe Vegeta, Wolverine, Homer Simpson, and any of the TMNT. I think EVERYONE else is suspect.

Day 613 is up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/79321635

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