I can't see KOS-MOS losing anything from that picture. She's still a cutie... heh heh. But seriously, I actually do vote KOS-MOS on picture advantage if I don't care about her opponent. She got my vote against Crash because of it. (and maybe a pity vote vs Samus, I don't remember... I would have done it now though)

Same with Kefka. If it's a close call between which character I like better, and Kefka's opponent has a better picture, I'll likely vote the opponent. This might rob him of some votes if many people think like me and also had not a huge preference between Kefka and say Tommy Vercetti.

This is half the reason I argue for pictures having an effect so often, because they do with me all the time if I'm borderline.
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Living example of a picture voter, right here!

I'll buy; Solid is in a rough gauntlet (that, for now, I still think he'll survive), and Tifa looks absolutely vicious and primed to take down Sonic and Mega Man.
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Hillary Clinton: We need to treat violent video games the way we treat tobacco or alcohol.
Lewis Black: Namely as valued contributors to our re-election fund.

BUY OR SELL: A member of the Noble Nine will lose to an outside character this contest.

I'm still buying this, and it may be as early as the second round.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

Personally, I think that Noble Nine are noble, not because of statistics, but because they are just more liked. The fact is, all 9 of those characters get placed on tons of favorite character's lists. I just can't believe that stats can explain it. It's not linear. Those 9 characters are liked consistently, and people will vote them over most other characters. I doubt anyone will beat them anytime soon, not because they are actually weaker, but because they just aren't in that league of "liked by most people." Even if Luigi got 96% in today's match, I still wouldn't take him over Sonic.
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"All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be."
MasterMage119

And yes, I realize that what I posted above shatters my notion that Bowser could beat Snake. I don't think Bowser will beat Snake anymore.
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"All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be."
MasterMage119

Sell. And for the record, I think the biggest threat right now is Solid Snake vs Ryu (SF). Funny because most don't even have Ryu leaving round 2.
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Raiden fact of the post: Raiden has never lost to a character not from the Noble Nine.

BUY OR SELL: A member of the Noble Nine will lose to an outside character this contest.

I'll buy it a few times over...
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Ahem! There's LETTUCE on my boots!
http://www.geocities.com/lettucekefka/

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

BUY OR SELL: A member of the Noble Nine will lose to an outside character this contest.

I'll buy it for Bowser and Vincent, and maybe I'll bid small in an auction for Zelda and Tifa.
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For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to refer to Gordon Freeman versus Tanner as Schrodinger's Match. -Phoenix Flattener

Heh, this match is currently on pace for about 105,000 votes. Luigi's outdoing his brother here.

Come out from among the shadows and show your true strength!
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

^_^


KB

Go Luigi! He should be up there closer to his brother anyway.

And I'm still unchanged about my stance on Squall (overperformed on Luigi in 2003 thanks to KHF), so that THAT Squall fans!
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Luigi vs. KOS-MOS - Bracket: Luigi - Vote: Luigi (24/27)

Still doesn't change the fact that Squall beat him down, so it doesn't bother me.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

Guys, I figured it out. EVERYONE above VFL increased in strength!!!!
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"All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be."
MasterMage119

What about KOS-MOS? :P

She increased less than Luigi! ISN'T it obvious!?!?!
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"All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be."
MasterMage119

Yea.. he still beat down Luigi.

Squall has also had KH:CoM and KH2 hype from this year. Hopefully that will help him "Overpreform" again this year.

KB

Yeah, maybe he'll break 40% against Knuckles.

>>;;;
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"All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be."
MasterMage119

I hope not...Damn Squall and Tidus always beat characters I like...

If Kirby beats Tidus and Knux beats Squall, I'd die a happy man.
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Luigi vs. KOS-MOS - Bracket: Luigi - Vote: Luigi (24/27)

Kratos Aurion vs KOS-MOS
Who would you take to be the most powerful non-Squaresoft console RPG character?
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"Those whose memories fade seek to carve them in their hearts..."
"All dreams are but another reality. Never forget..."

Kratos and KOS-MOS? Why not Ness? He looked damn good against CJ, though we obviously don't know his strength...
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I'm about to get sigged by Karma Hunter, and all I'll get is this lousy T-shirt.--Clockwork Dragon

Squall beats characters I like, too: Luigi, Kirby, and soon Knuckles.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

My god, Ulti with a KOS-MOS quote? And I thought he hated Xenosaga :P and has Luigi gone up, or KOS-MOS down?
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WWEGSB Hardcore Legend Masa
"Masa, everytime I talk to you, my urge for hot pockets rises. Damn you" - Linky.

Why not Ness? He looked damn good against CJ, though we obviously don't know his strength...

I would imagine that he wouldn't be up there if he only had Earthbound to go on.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

Squall beats characters I like, too: Luigi, Kirby, and soon Knuckles.

He won't beat Knuckles. Just you wait :P
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WWEGSB Hardcore Legend Masa
"Masa, everytime I talk to you, my urge for hot pockets rises. Damn you" - Linky.

Samus beats the characters I like.

>.<

And Squall is about to beat Knuckles.

That sucks.

I wouldnt be too upset if Knuckles won as far as being a cool character.

Just upset about the bracket.


KB

But Squall's your favorite character, while I could care less about him. Same with Tidus.

And for now, I'm saying Kratos >= KOS-MOS > Ness
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Luigi vs. KOS-MOS - Bracket: Luigi - Vote: Luigi (24/27)

Oh, so we're confining it to characters from *only* non-Squaresoft RPGs and nothing else...I think I'd take Kratos over KOS-MOS in a close one, frankly.
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I'm about to get sigged by Karma Hunter, and all I'll get is this lousy T-shirt.--Clockwork Dragon

Knuckles beating Magus is enough for me to believe he'll beat Squall.
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WWEGSB Hardcore Legend Masa
"Masa, everytime I talk to you, my urge for hot pockets rises. Damn you" - Linky.

except, Magus was overrated and was going to get beaten by Squall.

Squall would have had a harder time with Magus due to the potential SFF, than he will with Knuckles.



KB

Ahahaha!

<3<3<3<3 Luigi. This is kick ass.
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Mario is Winnar
Next victim: Master Ness

...::kicks bracket in the balls::

Go Luigi!
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The King of all Cosmos' route to summer victory:
Round 1: (0) Voters

Seems like the stats (at least xsts, that's what the gurus seem to use anyway) are debated upon quite a bit of late.

Just wondering who here takes the Xsts as a rough guideline for these contest at best?

I do not know exactly how the stats are calculated, but I take it that they are mathematically sound.

However, based on my elementary knowledge of statistics, I do know that for any statistic to have any sort of significance (mathematically), you need a large sample of data.

Save for the "noble nine", few characters have more than 2 matches a year. (IIRC, Knux lost to Snake 3 times in the 2nd round, so even a perennial match winner like him only has 6 matches) So that means a character is likely to have less than 6 matches' worth of data to work with.

Now, only the naive will believe that the "voting conditions" for the matches are constant for the past 3 years. The vote totals alone attest to that. Say the average match takes 100k votes, and a generous 90% of the voters are constant. That still leaves 10k votes that's varying day by day, and a mere 50-50 split to a 60-40 split in that 10k will lead to a 2k vote advantage for a character.

We also have factors (taking from the theories presented in board 8) such as SFF, TJF, Pic factor, etc for which, save again for perhaps a very few characters (I'd say namely Cloud, Sephy, Mario, Link and Crono), there is not much data to confirm or disprove, let alone gauge the magnitude of, these factors to the vote totals. (So a good proxy for SFF between Cloud and Sephy would be to use their matches against Link as a base and then compare their 2k3 final match with the base results; however, that SFF should only apply to Cloud and Sephy at most, no one else)

Add to the fact that there are year to year fluctuations of popularity for characters for a multitude of reasons, for example:
- new games released/announced (or lack there of)
- cameo appearances in other games
- people playing old games because of hype / news / general back logs
- discovery of new uses for the character in games (say a new strat for Luigi places him top tier in SSBM)
and so forth.

There are probably other factors that we have failed to notice.

Long story short: I believe that statistically speaking there is not enough data to substantiate that the stats (extrapolated or not) is anything more than fairly rough guideline for the toss-up matches (because none of us needs the stats to tell us that Mario will win his match against Joanna Dark).

My opinion etc etc, feel free to beg to differ etc etc.

Oh, for the few who might be wondering, I made my bracket purely based on my own "logic" (which placed Kerrigan winning the Devil Division =p) and deduction based on what I recalled happening in previous contests. Actually my bracket is probably more of a favourites bracket, heh. (24/27 so far)
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SSBM. Rock rock on!

At the 13:05 mark, this match has 65,454 votes.

Mario/Joanna - 61,923
Ryu/Rikku - 65,655
Squall/Geno - 62,052
Tifa/Vyse - 58,175
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

I've been on vacation since the Magus match so I haven't really been around to read the stats topics, but I'm assuming people have been saying that Tifa > Sonic because she beat up a fodderline character and that Luigi is underrated in the stats because he's beating up a character whose last game was considered mediocre by many. RPGuy's gotta be smiling at this Luigi result. did I miss anything else?
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"HOLY ****ING HELL, I JUST WOKE UP, VOTED MAGUS, WENT TO CLICK CONTEST STATS, DOUBLE TOOK, AND COULD NOT ****ING BELIEVE IT." - Explicit Content

You missed more CJayC typos.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

saw that - if Kratos Auron is the most interesting development in the last week, then I picked a good week to miss. these boring matches need to get over so we can get to the round 2 wars.
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"HOLY ****ING HELL, I JUST WOKE UP, VOTED MAGUS, WENT TO CLICK CONTEST STATS, DOUBLE TOOK, AND COULD NOT ****ING BELIEVE IT." - Explicit Content

From: RPGuy96 | Posted: 8/15/2005 12:50:58 PM | Message Detail
This is clearly all KOS-MOS' fault. Never mind the fact that she either increased last contest, or stayed constant for two years, if Link SFF'd Samus. Never mind the fact that using a static Luigi puts her 2.5% under Crash Bandicoot, whom she beat with 62%, in one of the top 10 biggest first round bracket upsets, with a mere 42% bracket backing. Never mind that we've never had a non-fodder character be hurt by a new game (in fact, Dante was right around KOS-MOS' level before DMC2). Never mind that Luigi is doing a cool 10% better than Ryu did. Never mind each and every one of my points I made in a five page essay examining the chain of events that led Luigi to be underrated by the XS. All KOS-MOS dropping, here.

But yesterday? All Tifa, man. She's clearly Noble Nine material after one match, and will probably win the main bracket. It's impossible for Vyse to fall after two years of being constant. He's had nothing come out since then! No new game to hurt him! And, of course, it's utterly impossible for him to rank around Laharl, whom he beat with 60% and 67% of the brackets backing him. All Tifa.

Ironically, I would say that this rant is actually correct in large part.

That will be verified next round.

I'd even be willing to make a sig bet about it. I'd be stunned if Luigi broke 43% on Tifa. I don't like betting against Luigi, because I love him, but I can't see how he can make that a match. (unless Tifa's pic is unrecognizable)
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www.SC2K5.com
www.sc2k5.com/gallery

this has probably been done sometime today, but assuming a constant KOS-MOS and a constant Vyse, how does Luigi-Tifa project?
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"HOLY ****ING HELL, I JUST WOKE UP, VOTED MAGUS, WENT TO CLICK CONTEST STATS, DOUBLE TOOK, AND COULD NOT ****ING BELIEVE IT." - Explicit Content

One thing about this match though is that it makes Zelda>Snake look even better. Also Bowser>Snake, but Snake might not make it there.
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www.SC2K5.com
www.sc2k5.com/gallery

58/42 IIRC
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I've been Pwned by KoaC. He really is the king of all cosmos.

If you look at it now, Tifa ends up with around 44% in the stats using Vyse (right under Seph), and Luigi ends up with around 37% using KOS-MOS (right under Mario).

I find that interesting, espically seeing as how Tifa could beat Luigi by the same amount Seph beat Mario by in 2003. >.>
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Luigi vs. KOS-MOS - Bracket: Luigi - Vote: Luigi (24/27)

If you use the relationships between Zelda/Mega Man in 2k3 and Mega Man/Snake in 2k4, what is Snake projected to get on 2k3 Zelda? I'm being lazy right now.
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MM are my INITIALS "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those that read binary and those that don't."

interesting. obviously Luigi's not at 37%, and I'd be damned if I believed Tifa was anything near 44%. I can't come up with a way that Tifa could win the main bracket - I could see her in the finals if she was somehow able to SFF Crono, but Samus? Mario? I'm not seein' it. basing a character's strength off one match, especially one that is defined as being the fodder line, is dangerous.
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"HOLY ****ING HELL, I JUST WOKE UP, VOTED MAGUS, WENT TO CLICK CONTEST STATS, DOUBLE TOOK, AND COULD NOT ****ING BELIEVE IT." - Explicit Content

I dunno, this seems right to me. It felt strange that some characters would be so far away from characters they were closely related to. Now I'm not saying Luigi went all the way up to Mario level (I wish), but I am saying that it is more natural to believe he went up than she went down. The gap between Link/Cloud and everyone else has been too large, and there are too many midcarders in the same range, it's about time they spread out some.
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Now Link, fill up your hearts
So you can shoot your sword with power

Luigi's really putting up an impressive performance here today. I'm honestly shocked. Nintendo and new school Square have been monsterous.

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Cloud Strife: What’s going to happen to the Planet?
Sephiroth: That… will be for you to decide.

(unless Tifa's pic is unrecognizable)

http://www.ffcompendium.com/chara/7-tifa-a2.jpg

... Would that work for you?

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<_<

Heh, with that picture not only is Sonic over Tifa a lock, but I'd give Luigi over Tifa the favorite as well. That's just...awful.
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I'm about to get sigged by Karma Hunter, and all I'll get is this lousy T-shirt.--Clockwork Dragon

That pic makes Tifa and Terra seem related.
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The King of all Cosmos' route to summer victory:
Round 1: (0) Voters

I'd rather like to see how a Mario/Luigi match would go down, personally. How badly do you think Luigi would be SFF'ed?
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"Thank you, Mario. But our princess is in another castle."
-Toad in Super Mario Bros.