Board 8 > Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1381

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, I wouldn't even think twice about Knux beating Tidus.

ctesjbuvf posted...

Tidus might have been near elite. That Ganondorf result is really darn good looking back.

Nah, it's a doubly fraudulent result based on Ganondorf boosting in 2004 and Magus overperforming on Link in 2003. It's unlikely Magus really ever dropped from 2003 to 2005. He was just never that strong to begin with (relatively speaking, of course, he was a decent midcarder but nothing more), and Ganondorf just boosted from Twilight Princess hype in 2004.

Then Tidus got his own fraudulent result against Shadow in 2004 that seemed to verify that the 2003 X-Stats were correct, so yeah, it was just a weird confluence of results that Kirby and Knuckles worked together to expose in 2005.

Near elite might be pushing it but breaking 40% in 02 Sonic also looks good.

Magus probably dropped a little bit though it changes no results obviously.

The SFF fest in 2004 makes everything seem more sudden.

I wouldn't be surprised if Tidus was at his strongest in 2002. After all, FFX was only six months old at the time. He basically settled in right where he's basically been ever since in 2003 though.

Sonic vs. Tidus in 2002 had the poll down for a bit of time in the day vote, IIRC. So, that result might be a little bit suspect.

Witcher 3 playrate poll today:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9922-

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2004-triforce-division-round-1-kuja-vs-master-hand

It's a friggin' GLOVE! Welcome to the last result that made me legitimately angry (not to say I haven't been annoyed by results since then, we'll have some choice words for the end of GotD, for instance). Kuja was a big favorite here, with the Oracle average being nearly 60% for this match. Master Hand did have two outspoken advocates though: HaRRicH and MasterMage.

Kuja started off well, with 55% in the first thirty minutes and he built up a 400 vote lead after four hours. That's when the comeback started, and Master Hand caught up three hours later. The glove built up its own 400 vote lead over the next five hours, but people still held onto hope that Kuja would make a comeback of his own.

Then it happened. We saw the Smash day vote hit in full force. Over the last 12 hours of the match, Master Hand's lead grew from 400 to 5500 by the end. It was wild to watch an essentially even match for the first half turn into a runaway victory in the second half. Oh yeah, it sucked, too.

If Master Hand vs. Kuja happened nowadays, would Kuja even be able to avoid a doubling?

Alternately, would Kuja even be able to beat Crazy Hand?

I dunno, Master Hand is still pretty mediocre, and FFIX is stronger now than it was back then. I get Square as a whole has dropped off since then, but Vivi and Zidane are stronger now than they were in 2005. It's possible the same holds true for Kuja.

Shaped like a glove. It's a shame we never got to see post-SSBU Master Hand in action.

I don't think Master Hand plays much of a role in Smash anymore to warrant much of a boost.

I think Kuja could take it, or at least it'll be just as close.

Master Hand is in >50% of the classic mode route boss fights in Ultimate and you get to finally legitimately play as him in World of Light, which I only ever saw praise for . There's reason for him to get a boost.

Would he boost among the ~6000 people still voting is another question, tho

oh yeah I forgot about that

but world of light how many people even played that far

Witcher 3 currently has a 47.58% playrate in today's poll. That is lower than I expected for a game that has as much strength as it does.

recency bias gonna be hell for witcher 3

TBH I'd be surprised if a half dozen games to come out in the 2010s had a 50%+ playrate. A lot of strength for modern games comes from reputation and series.

A lot of really popular games have lower play rates than you'd think. We just get spoiled by the Mario and Zelda classics that have an 80%+ rate. Those are the exceptions.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9867-10-years-later-have-you-ever-played-bloodborne

Bloodborne barely has a 35% playrate.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9741-20-years-later-have-you-ever-played-metal-gear-solid-3

MGS3 has 47%.

Older games tend to have higher yeah and not just Mario and Zelda either though they score high.

Surprised MGS3 is that low but MGS1 is way higher.

ctesjbuvf posted...

Surprised MGS3 is that low but MGS1 is way higher.

I blame MGS2

Everyone wanted to see the adventures of snake and Raiden continue

We haven't had a contest in 5 years and people still bring up old matches...

Safer_777 posted...

We haven't had a contest in 5 years and people still bring up old matches...

as opposed to what

As opposed to new matches from alternate universes.

We also do that. >_>

TeamRocketElite posted...

We also do that. >_>

Although not as often as we used to

In an alternate universe where Tanner and Spring Breeze Dancin' are the Link and Cloud of the contests, who wins in 2025?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2005-mushroom-division-round-2-bowser-vs-sigma

I feel like 2005 Bowser is a potential test case for how much bracket voting actually helps. This was probably the strongest Bowser we've ever seen, and it's possible it's in part due to how high his bracket support was here in Villains, which carried over into SC2K5 (which we'll cover when we get there).

I think you see it again in the Female Bracket in SC2K6, too, when you see silly things like Yuna only doing a few percent worse on Joanna Dark than Mario did the year before. Now I'm getting even further ahead of myself, but the point is that more people probably bracket vote than we realize, especially early on when more brackets are still alive.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2006-mushroom-division-round-2-revolver-ocelot-vs-dr-wily

Ocelot was the big favorite pre-contest, but after struggling with Nemesis in round one, Wily gained some support, although he still entered the match as the underdog.

However, Ocelot ended all doubt rather quickly, starting off at around 59% and then gradually fading into the mid-50s, much as he had done the round before. Wily and Nemesis ending up near equals wasn't something most people predicted, but there is a factor to consider.

This match was the only time Ocelot ever got an MGS3 picture. Considering this is likely the most popular version of the character, I wonder if it gave him a boost against Wily. Too bad he never got another MGS3 picture after this.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2007-jenova-division-round-2-sephiroth-vs-vergil

Not much to say about this one. Sephiroth did what he was expected to do. Somehow this wouldn't be the last time we'd see Vergil though.

Well he wouldn't go out in round 1 the second time either

Or the third time!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2008-jenova-division-round-2-lavos-vs-liquid-snake

This match definitely raised some red flags about the 2004 X-Stats because they projected Liquid to be a high midcarder, and the Oracle average of around 65% reflected that. Liquid started off around 60% but slowly bled percentage throughout the match. Also it's kind of wild that only a little more than 50% of brackets expected Liquid to survive a fourpack with Lavos, Mother Brain, and Tenpenny.

The Villains Contest also made for some awkward pictures when you have something like this, with a normal looking dude facing off against a giant spiky monster.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6d16ea8e.jpg

I think the color palette being brown on brown on brown isn't helping that Liquid/Lavos picture.

Also the fact that Lavos is supposed to be a behemoth compared to the CT party members, but Liquid is about the same height as Lavos here. You couldn't get him exactly to scale without him being an ant in the picture, but he still looks like a skyscraper here.

Was Tenpenny the casual bait then

Not really. Liquid had 87% of the brackets against Tenpenny. The half of brackets that didn't have Liquid went with whoever they had winning between Mother Brain and Lavos, likely because of name value of the series.

And Lavos had 62% of brackets beating Mother Brain, so it's not like it was an overwhelming favorite going into the match

It must have just been pretty split between those three

I guess franchise name does a lot

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2f355ca7.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2009-ruin-division-round-2-kefka-vs-wesker

This was the first and last time we got to see the full raw potential of Kefka, thanks to getting an in-game sprite picture and background (which makes normal looking dude Wesker look totally out of place for good measure). It apparently even impacted Kefka's trends (or he has the exact same trends as Wesker) because he held steady at 70% pretty much the entire match instead of dropping off after a hot start.

This beatdown was so bad that it made Wesker look handily weaker than Mithos. Heck, once you factored in Wesker's SC2K5 match a couple months later, it made Lloyd Irving look weaker than Mithos, too!

One of the biggest match pic advantages of all time. It's not just the sprite - they even used his boss background too.

I believe the background was given to the higher seed in all of the second round match pics. It probably wouldn't have been such a disadvantage if Wesker had gotten the high seed, but then again, we could have gotten laughing sprite if Wesker had the background.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2010-ruin-division-round-2-m-bison-vs-diablo

This was probably the best match of the contest in terms of drama and quality. It was also the last close match (Kefka/Diablo had a close-ish margin, but the outcome was decided early on). Diablo was a clear favorite, but Bison had his supporters, too, including a particular user who had been #1 on the leaderboard for most of the contest, named fedor. He certainly wasn't shy about letting everyone know he was #1 either...until the end of this match.

Anyway, Bison took the lead early on, but he maxed out at around 150 votes 90 minutes in. He held Diablo at bay for the next few hours, but he eventually lost the lead. Then Diablo built a lead of about 1000 votes, but Bison tried to mount a comeback of his own, managing to get the lead under 700 votes at the halfway point.

Then, much like Kuja/Master Hand, the day vote arrived in full force in favor of Diablo. He managed to win by nearly 5000 votes, and somehow this was the last time we ever saw Bison. I held out hope he would one day win the Returners Tournament, but it was never meant to be.

Thanks, Bison.

Thanks for that Ulti

Glad you know everyone back then was just an alt