I'm not big on basketball analysts. They always go with whoever has the momentum.

From: Zylo the wolf | Posted: 8/17/2005 1:42:52 PM | Message Detail | #347
People who are good with stats, what are the chances that we will see Albert Wesker>Leon in the X-stats?

I think they're pretty low, but I don't feel like doing the math.

~*ST*~
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Winner of the Spring 2004 "Best. Game. Ever." Contest
"If my fate is to be destroyed... I must simply laugh!" -Magus

By the way, the original Ninja Gaiden is one of the most badly designed platformers I've ever played.

~*ST*~
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Winner of the Spring 2004 "Best. Game. Ever." Contest
"If my fate is to be destroyed... I must simply laugh!" -Magus

Switch it up with another high-scoring game with alot of season games and the point still stands. Besides, isn't a common arguement for some of our characters (mainly Magus and Frog) momentum?
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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.

The first round needs to hurry up and end
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WWEGSB Hardcore Legend Masa
"Masa, everytime I talk to you, my urge for hot pockets rises. Damn you" - Linky.

I think the best way to use the stats is probably to see the relative popularity of the returning characters, and then use one's own logic/intuition to judge who went up/down.

Although it seems that usually, the harder matches to pick are the ones involving new characters, because even at this point there's still speculation on how strong Tifa and Vincent are.

Expecting any type of statistic to have 100% prediction accuracy is not only illogical, but mathematically improbable. It's pretty much certain that nothing will ever predict anything with 100% accuracy.
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SSBM. Rock rock on!

Ninja Gaiden 2 > Ninja Gaiden
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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."

Is there any chance that Gordon Freeman is one of those Frog like characters where he can never really get blown out unless facing one of the bigger guns?
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Leon's Quest For Ultimate Glory:
1. Tripling Gordon Freeman.

I'm starting to doubt if Frog will drop below 45% on Samus after this. <_<
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"i started playing mario brothers as luigi and threw the controller down in disgust in the middle of the game because he lacked character"--gokujont

I'm not a big fan of the idea that certain characters will always score so much until they face the big boys, myself. I take this more as Leon's strength than anything else, though I'm confident that HL2 boosted Gordon some...not much, mind you, but a lil' bit.
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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.

From: HaRRicH | Posted: 8/17/2005 2:05:29 PM | Message Detail
<Comparison to basketball>

Sports games are an entirely different beast than internet polls. There are FAR too many factors to take into consideration - home team, the effect of the crowd, the weather (well, not so much for indoor sports), injuries, refereeing in general (i.e. the human factor), bad referees, and tons of mental factors such as momentum, pressure, making a shot at the buzzer, etc.

Plus, there's a HUGE sample size difference - a basketball game consists of a total of usually not more than 250 or so points scored, whereas the polls here bring in upwards of 100,000 votes, which is about 400 times as many sample points. The larger the sample size, the smaller the probability of random variation changing the outcome - basketball games are often decided by shots at the buzzer, whereas only a small handful of contest polls have came down to the last couple of minutes.
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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

As I said countless times before Gordon cannot be explained by logic. I honestly wouldin't be surprised in the least if he broke 40% on Ganondorf. I doubt this has anything to do with Leon's strength at all. All this is saying is that GFNW... But never loses that badly either.

I wasn't aiming for an exact comparison, though it's still hard to argue they're not similar enough to fairly compare. Some of the things you mentioned can also be roughly traslated to our contest though, to go a lil' deeper; the home team/crowd support can oftentimes be Board 8 or the picture factor, for example. Again though, roughly translated.

Also, about NBA games often-times being closer...of course; they're supposed to be the thirty-two best teams available in the nation. They're alot more equal because of that, as opposed to us having the 64 most nominated characters regardless of their strength. Give us a 32-character season with characters as strong as Knuckles (or another decent mid-carder) and up, and you'll see alot more closer matches.
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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.

One last thing, then I gotta leave; what Ulti was asking for is for the stats to stay exactly constant from one year to the next before he trusts them. However, when GTA:VC/SW:KotOR faced off for their two days side-by-side, GTA:VC couldn't keep constant. So, I think since it didn't line up precisely right with what it did the day before, we should throw out direct match-ups too. Afterall, Solid/Knuckles went three different ways in their three matches, and Mario/Crono didn't have the exact same vote differiental in their first two matches before Crono beat him the third match. Direct match-ups are foul, too.

</sarcasm>
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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.

I don't see where all this anti-X-stats stuff is coming from. Are they flawed? Yes. But they're the best we've got.

And if the X-Stats were able to predict every contest veteran's strength almost perfectly, that would make the contests boring. So I can't complain that they're off sometimes.
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I can't think of anything to put here, but I can't just leave it blank, can I?

Hating them is just the new fad I think. It'll pass soon enough.
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.nS) quote of the week:
"I don't know how to work the machine. I just act like I know what I'm doing, and people tip me." - syst

X-Stats are only right about, 75% of the time I say.
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WWEGSB Hardcore Legend Masa
"Masa, everytime I talk to you, my urge for hot pockets rises. Damn you" - Linky.

Although I will say that the number of fallacious statements made in the past 50 posts is disheartening!
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.nS) quote of the week:
"I don't know how to work the machine. I just act like I know what I'm doing, and people tip me." - syst

By the way, the original Ninja Gaiden is one of the most badly designed platformers I've ever played.

Wait... what? I could've sworn you were singing it's praises when you first played it. I thought you made a topic about it. Maybe "singing it's praises" is a bit strong, but I know you weren't dissing it.
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Raiden fact of the post: It was the birds that got you, right? Raiden always hated the birds too.

"By the way, the original Ninja Gaiden is one of the most badly designed platformers I've ever played."

<_<

*stabs ulti*

>_>

*runs like hell*
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Now Link, fill up your hearts
So you can shoot your sword with power

"Most badly" doesn't work very well in that sentence. "Most poorly" or "worst" would be more grammatically correct.

*gets stabbed*

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Mario's Path to Victory: Round 2 - (4) Ness

I think it's chic to diss the stats whenever they miss. Yet they find the proper range (note the word I used, please) more often than not. Yes, they can't take into account oddities and anomalies, but they're not going to be so off that Mario will suddenly beat Cloud when the stats predict an utter beatdown.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

...and Freeman is STILL one of the few characters to break 40% in every match he's been in. Amazing.
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The King of all Cosmos' route to summer victory:
Round 1: (0) Voters

Of all the examples to use, why Mario vs. Cloud?
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Now Link, fill up your hearts
So you can shoot your sword with power

but they're not going to be so off that Mario will suddenly beat Cloud when the stats predict an utter beatdown.

But... Mario beat Cloud in 2k2! And yet in 2k3 they predict an utter beatdown...

I'm not saying 2k2 wasn't a fluke, but I'm just pointing out that there's always a possibility, no matter how faint, of a huge swing like that.
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Raiden fact of the post: Raiden predicts at least one ridiculous swing will happen this year... so I can't say I'm doubting that something will happen.

Of all the examples to use, why Mario vs. Cloud?

Because Ulti decided to use it himself last night in his anti-stats rant.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

I'm not saying 2k2 wasn't a fluke, but I'm just pointing out that there's always a possibility, no matter how faint, of a huge swing like that

But not without reason. Cloud had a reason to increase and likely should've won easily in 2002 anyway. When Mario 128 comes out, it might be a different story. Right now...Nah.
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Squall Leonhart's Road to the Summer Contest 2005 Championship
Round 2: (3) Mag...Er...(6) Knuckles the Echidna

People ought to have realised that the stats aren't some kind of holy grail that'll give you a perfect bracket after two sets told you Mario>Crono and then you get Crono>Mario for no apparent reason. If anything, they'll tell you they're in the same ballpark and each match could go either way. They can tell you if one character is clearly (and by that I mean bigger than Magus-Knuckles clearly) better than the other, but if they're in even remotely the same area it'll take a bit of thought.

The biggest level of moaning will come when Mario lays the smackdown on Samus. The amount of complaining about busted brackets in that one will be huge.
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Jon Thomson - MARIO, Samus, SOLID SNAKE, Bowser, CRONO, Squall, Sonic, MEGA MAN

Anyone who has Samus over Mario is likely following the stats, which means they had Magus to Crono. Which means, that whining is already long past...
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"i started playing mario brothers as luigi and threw the controller down in disgust in the middle of the game because he lacked character"--gokujont

From: Karma Hunter | Posted: 8/17/2005 9:20:06 PM | #378
Anyone who has Samus over Mario is likely following the stats, which means they had Magus to Crono. Which means, that whining is already long past...

Oh, they could easily have had Vincent to Crono and only be thinking they're losing three points (ignoring any Squall considerations here). -3 will probably win this.
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Jon Thomson - MARIO, Samus, SOLID SNAKE, Bowser, CRONO, Squall, Sonic, MEGA MAN

The biggest level of moaning will come when Mario lays the smackdown on Samus. The amount of complaining about busted brackets in that one will be huge.

You don't need the stats to think that Samus is more popular than Mario right now. Contrary to what many people believe, Mario isn't the pillar of popularity that he once used to be. Right now, I believe that Samus is more popular than Mario, and she has every reason to be. To hell with stats... That comment was full of bigotry in my opinion.
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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."

Well, I'm thoroughly disappointed in Mr. Kennedy here. I guess I could just hope it's Freeman and that blasted Half-Life 2...

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

Oh, they could easily have had Vincent to Crono and only be thinking they're losing three points (ignoring any Squall considerations here). -3 will probably win this.

Exactly what I have in my bracket. I'm actually pulling for Knuckles to beat Squall as well, as that will upset even more brackets without hurting mine any further.
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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."

It's neither HM, it's the law of GFNW that Gordon never loses by over 60%

From: therealmnm | Posted: 8/17/2005 9:40:03 PM | #380
You don't need the stats to think that Samus is more popular than Mario right now.

Yes, Echoes was an unqualified success, wasn't it?

That comment was full of bigotry in my opinion.

What is that supposed to mean?
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Jon Thomson - MARIO, Samus, SOLID SNAKE, Bowser, CRONO, Squall, Sonic, MEGA MAN

Well, I'm thoroughly disappointed in Mr. Kennedy here. I guess I could just hope it's Freeman and that blasted Half-Life 2...

Or you can agree that maybe Leon ISN'T as popular as Jill contrary to what you may believe. Regardless on how good Resident Evil 2 and 4 were, I still thought that Jill was more popular than Leon as a character. And it's not like RE2 and RE4 are THAT much more popular than RE1, RE3, and REmake...

It may very well be a Gordon Freeman increase, but I still think that Jill Valentine is more popular than Leon Kennedy.
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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."

I don't get people who attack the x-stats. absolutely nothing is going to predict a popularity contest to the exact percentage. why would you expect that? you could put the same match on consecutive days and you'd still get different results. you might get the same result if you polled the same exact population on consecutive days, but not everyone visits gamefaqs everyday. between contests, you've got at least a year of time inbetween for the people voting to change and opinions to change.

heck, there are people whose job it is to figure out how a presidential election is going to go, and even they're off. if someone who works 40 hours a week to get accurate results is off, wouldn't you think some simple computation would be? it's not a reason to attack the x-stats; they are what they are.
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http://picturesofwalls.com

Yes, Echoes was an unqualified success, wasn't it?

Are you trying to argue that Samus isn't popular because MP2 didn't have high sales totals? Samus never has had huge sales for any of her games. It doesn't stop her from being a powerhouse, does it?

Don't read in too much to that other comment. It just irked me that you were pretty much guaranteeing that Mario is going to blow Samus out of the water, when there has been nothing of note to indicate that, x-stats be damned. You don't NEED the stats to make a good argument for Samus...
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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."

No, it's the law of GameFAQs that Resident Evil is always bound to fail. I don't know how Claire and Jill did so well in 2k2 but it was clearly a fluke as RE characters (and even the first game) haven't failed to disapoint since.
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Now Link, fill up your hearts
So you can shoot your sword with power

"Samus never has had huge sales for any of her games."

I think Prime 2 is the first time (or second) that a Metroid game didn't break a million in the NA region. Now, none of them since the first have done it in Japan, but sometimes they just don't like Metroid.
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Now Link, fill up your hearts
So you can shoot your sword with power

Or you can agree that maybe Leon ISN'T as popular as Jill contrary to what you may believe.

That is an option, but there's nothing ruling out what I had previously said either.

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

From: therealmnm | Posted: 8/17/2005 9:51:26 PM | #387
Yes, Echoes was an unqualified success, wasn't it?

Are you trying to argue that Samus isn't popular because MP2 didn't have high sales totals? Samus never has had huge sales for any of her games. It doesn't stop her from being a powerhouse, does it?

No. Samus is a very strong character, but the way you say "Samus is more popular than Mario right now" seems to indicate that you think Samus has suddenly become more popular recently, when the last game that really might have made any difference was Prime.

And I'm confident Mario will win. They're both Nintendo headliners, and there's nothing that suggests that there's not a large common factor between Mario's and Samus' fanbases. And they're likely to swing towards Mario, Metroid is clearly the third series in the Nintendo hierarchy.
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Jon Thomson - MARIO, Samus, SOLID SNAKE, Bowser, CRONO, Squall, Sonic, MEGA MAN

In an extremely unsurprising development, the vote totals for this one are gonna be low... probably in the neighborhood of 92,000, judging by its relation to other matches.
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I can't think of anything to put here, but I can't just leave it blank, can I?

It would be funny if Leon overperforms on Mega Man next round.
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Summer 2005 Contest - 26/29 points
Current Match Prediction: Gordon Freeman vs. Leon Kennedy

I wouldn't be amazed to see him overperform. what's he expected to get on Mega Man right now, 25-30%? he'll break that with ease, I'd think.
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http://picturesofwalls.com

Leon will get 40% on Mega Man... I honestly hope he does just to see Gordon's rank.

If Leon does 'overperform' to what he's expected to do now, people will chalk that up to Mega Man being adjusted wrongly in 2k4 rather than a sign of Leon's strength.
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"i started playing mario brothers as luigi and threw the controller down in disgust in the middle of the game because he lacked character"--gokujont

..dang, I always forget how weak GF is. he's looking to get tripled.

he'll get at least 30%.
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http://picturesofwalls.com

The way Leon's looking now, I wouldn't be surprised if Mega Man triples him next round.
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Summer 2005 Contest - 26/29 points
Current Match Prediction: Gordon Freeman vs. Leon Kennedy

oh, and if you use adjusted Mega Man, it's even worse.

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http://picturesofwalls.com

Do you guys think that Yoshi could blow out Laharl better percentage wise than Mega Man blew out Conker? I mean, Yoshi breaking a bit higher than 76% isn't completely out of the question. Sure, MM will beat Yoshi, and Conker > Laharl, but still, do you think Yoshi can do a bit better in the first match percentage wise?
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Vote for Yoshi
You have no chance to survive make your time.