Yeah, adjusted Tidus. It's just speculation for fun. It's not meant to be taken seriously.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

When Kirby wins today my favorites bracket will be beating me by 1 point and our next difference is tomorrow (I have Ryu my favorites has Bowser)
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I've been Pwned by KoaC. He really is the king of all cosmos.

I wouldn't expect Samus to SFF Bowser much, like I don't think she'll SFF Ganondorf much.

True, but Nintendo's bandwagon jumping has been scary in the past.

So I learn to detest Nintendo SFF matches greatly.

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Reserved for the winner of the SC2K5 Guru Challenge.

Yeah, adjusted Tidus. It's just speculation for fun. It's not meant to be taken seriously.

I guessed so.

But that number might make sense had it been 2k3, Square's strongest year.

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Reserved for the winner of the SC2K5 Guru Challenge.

Link SFFed Yoshi, so I wouldn't put it past Samus to SFF Ganondorf. Except that the G-man's bracket support is scary.

I skipped a ton of posts, as should be expected... so someone recap for me what people think: Kirby looking like Sonic, or Tidus looking like Ramza? -_-
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

Well, Samus isn't Link.

And it's more like Tidus looking like Ramza.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

Well, I'm at least glad I'm in the Top 50 at the moment. But, the thing that scares me is the correct %'s are way way down in certain match-ups.
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Summer Character Battle: 42; 45th

And, Ganondorf is a lot higher on the proverbial food chain than Yoshi... it's just that I'm wary of that kind of matches nowadays.
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to see Kirby's prediction percentage to be around Sora's.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

We're going through the single hardest to call string of matches since that triad of doom late in the 2002 contest. Except the latter actually delivered...
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

Tomorrow will deliver. I can feel it. I said before the contest that it would be an instant classic, and I still believe it.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

Triad of Doom in SC2K2? I can't find any consecutive 3 matches that were tough from Rounds 2 and on. Unless they're spread across different rounds, that is. Sonic/Samus, Sephiroth/Mega Man, Cloud/Mario, and Crono/Snake all went in a row.

Oh, and Solid Snake will NOT lose until he reaches the winner of Mario/Samus. Book it.

Heh, and watch me take back that statement tomorrow.

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"Ah, a party! We haven't had one of those. It could be fun! So...what is a party?"
"Well, you drink punch and eat CAKE! ...I think."

I started regretting Ryu > Bowser ever since I saw Bowser destroy Chun Li, but I started really regretting it when Luigi slaughtered KOS-MOS. Looking back, Ryu has never faced a Nintendo/Square character since 2k2, and Luigi vs KOS-MOS made me wonder if, while Ryu is decently strong, maybe he doesn't have the kind of fanbase to do what a similarly strong Nintendo or Square character good do in a match. I do know that goes against the very core of the transitivity of the X-stats, but my faith in them is down anyway. Combine this with an absurd Nintendo boost, and Ryu may not even get the night vote he needs and he'll just roll over and die right from the beginning.
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I need to put something here.

Hope so. If Bowser takes the lead right off the bat though, there's going to be an outrage...

Going completely off-topic now, but I might as well ask it while I'm at it: in ToS, does the stuff bought with grade in a New Game + (like carrying over items, 10x exp., etc.) carry over permanently, or do I have to buy it over and over at each New Game +?
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

From: Haste2 | Posted: 8/26/2005 9:54:02 PM | #212
Sonic/Samus, Sephiroth/Mega Man, Cloud/Mario, and Crono/Snake all went in a row.


I was referring to the first three, actually. All three finished with gaps below 1000... we've never seen that since.
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"You can't have gone over a kilometer up. 1500 meters, tops." -Samus Aran
"I'll express my love to you slowly, later." -Setzer Gabbiani

Combine this with an absurd Nintendo boost

...Where? We have no idea about Mario or Ness. Samus did pretty close to what she should've based on 2003 Master Chief. Zelda showed no signs of it against Snake. You can predict this match within a percent based on unadjusted Tidus. The only one who's really stood out is Ganondorf, and we still really have no certain idea of where Auron is.

And I honestly have a hard time seeing Bowser beat Ken more than he did Chun-Li.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

...Where? We have no idea about Mario or Ness. Samus did pretty close to what she should've based on 2003 Master Chief. Zelda showed no signs of it against Snake. You can predict this match within a percent based on unadjusted Tidus. The only one who's really stood out is Ganondorf, and we still really have no certain idea of where Auron is.

Ness still unexpectedly beat CJ, Ganon beat Auron by more then expected, Zelda vs Vivi speaks for itself, because even without Snake, I don't know why Vivi would drop so far, unadjusted Tidus doesn't work so well for me because it makes Shadow take an unreasonable drop too, which makes Kirby look great, Luigi completely destroyed KOS-MOS, and 2k3 MC is questionable anyway thanks to Felix, so Samus impressed me. And you have to look at more then just stats. Nintendo has been impressing, no way around it really. Sure, a lot of it definitely could be random fluctuation, but that's really a stretch.


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I need to put something here.

Ness beating OUR expectations really means nothing. And Zelda/Vivi only speaks for itself if you neglect her match with Snake. You really can't do that. You have to take the whole line of work into account. And I don't know why Felix puts MC's 2003 number into jeopardy. It's based on Aeris, not Felix.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

I was looking through a few Tidus topics and one said FFX-2 was a major factor in his defeat. Do any of you agree with that at all?

Ness beating OUR expectations really means nothing. And Zelda/Vivi only speaks for itself if you neglect her match with Snake. You really can't do that. You have to take the whole line of work into account. And I don't know why Felix puts MC's 2003 number into jeopardy. It's based on Aeris, not Felix.

Our expectations do mean a great deal, though, because as a whole we do know what we're talking about. We do only guess at the strength of new characters, but in general we're never too far off. Ok, Snake did impress vs Zelda, but she still did impress vs Vivi, so Nintendo did still look good. I don't like 2k3 MC anyway because MC more then most will have reasons to fluctuate because of Halo/2 getting more popular and accepted on GameFAQs, so I wouldn't want to use that. Add Felix into that, and the fact that Aeris SFF'd Sora more then Square SFF has ever been (except maybe Cloud vs Squall), which makes me suspicious of Aeris too.

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I need to put something here.

Our expectations do mean a great deal, though, because as a whole we do know what we're talking about

And we mess up a lot, too. The only reason Ness beat our expectations is because nobody thought CJ could be weaker than Jak. He looks better in hindsight because we didn't see it coming.

And it doesn't matter how good Zelda looked against Vivi when she does as expected against Snake.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

Not to mention Face CATS put MC pretty close to his 2003 level (as do the unadjusted 20XX stats), so I think it's fairly reliable.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

Zelda did awesome this contest. People are only disappointed in her because they expected way too much out of her after she crushed Vivi. Snake is not some lightweight, and I think Zelda did fine against him.
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Revenge is a dish best served cold. ~Old Klingon Proverb

Then if nothing else Ness vs CJ was a moral victory for Ness in every sense of the matter, regardless of expectations. Same with a lot of other matches, and eventually if we keep seeing Nintendo impress based on our expectations, something has got to be up.

And face CATS goes through Villain contest Ganondorf, who has a questionable value himself, regardless of him overperforming on Auron. I wouldn't be so quick to use that. Especially with Halo 2.
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I need to put something here.

Oh, and keep in mind that DK did worse against Sam Fisher than he was supposed to. So there doesn't seem to be an all-Nintendo increase, not to mention it could just mean that Vivi was overrated.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

Oh, and this match is about 1000 ahead of Ness/CJ right now, so we should see 100k before all is said and done.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

Which Sam? 2k4, right?

Oh and about Zelda, her X-stat value may not reflect how well she did on Vivi, but as a contestant she still has tha fairly big win right there.
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I need to put something here.

Which Sam? 2k4, right?

Of course, crushing 2003 Sam would put him WAYYYYYY up there.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

I fear to what extent this board would go in order to justify DK > MC.
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I need to put something here.

I'm almost certain that DK won't win that match. I just don't see it happening.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

Same. They're all hoping for something just a little too unreasonable.
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I need to put something here.

Everyone doubting him makes me worry, but hopefully he'll be able to pull through.
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Revenge is a dish best served cold. ~Old Klingon Proverb

Leonhart, you're familiar with the term "hindsight bias", right? I assume so, since I brought it up a few weeks ago. Anyway, you've been doing nothing except using cross-comparisons in different years to justify anomalies in the stats. That would be all well and good if we knew for certain which matches were anomalies, which matches were correct, and which characters might take a rise/drop. The fact is, we don't. We had no way of knowing that Sam Fisher would have predicted Magus's match with Knuckles perfectly. Please, stop acting as if it was obvious the whole time.

Man, I wish Ulti was here for this discussion >_>
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That... was her final mission. And like a true soldier, she saw it through the end.
ZSB [aX]

I've never talked like it was obvious the whole time. I've merely said the signs were there, and I said it way before Knuckles even won.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

Donkey Kong will beat Master Chief.

DK has the power the MTV fans besides him.

And I'm not talking about anything like it's obvious. I'm merely putting forth evidence as a viable explanation. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm not. And when you turn out to be wrong, you have to amend your ways. I can't be expected to be sticking to my guns long after they've been disproven.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

Everyone is doing that, though, not just Leon. Everyone who picked Magus over Squall was accepting the fact that Magus vs Link was probably more legit then Magus vs Sam, whether they realize it or not. And sure enough they were wrong. It's just more apparent with Leon because he's often supporting the less popular character.
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I need to put something here.

And note that there's a difference between "I knew it all along" and "We should've seen it coming." There are some things I've been saying we should've seen coming, not that I knew it all along. Hindsight bias is the latter.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

Match 40: (3) Bowser vs. (2) Ryu Hoshi >_>

Past Performances

Bowser

Summer 2005
Beat Chun Li, 65.90% - 34.10%

Win - Lose Record
7-3

Ryu

Summer 2005
Beat Rikku, 55.72% - 44.28%

Win - Lose Record
5-3

Analysis

Final match of the Gauntlet, we may have had some weird results, but in the end none of those matches were actually close. No matter who wins tomorrow the match will end up being very close. After the dominance of Nintendo characters so far with round 1 results Bowser is easily the favorite going into the match, but Ryu can still win it too.

Bowser did fairly well against Chun Li, a street fighter character last round. Ryu may also be from street fighter, but he’s easily the most popular character of the series. I’ve come to the conclusion of all the street fighter characters except for Ryu are roughly the same strength, which from the looks of it would make Bowser rank from his 2k3 stats.

Ryu on the other hand didn’t really impress with us. Then again he only did get 62% on KOS-MOS and I would expect Rikku to be stronger than that, plus with the impressive performance from Final Fantasy X’s female cast (must be from Final Fantasy X-2). Ryu is looking just fine going into the match.

Ryu may be higher stat wise than Bowser (using his 2k3), but since they are so close together I don’t think Ryu being higher will give him much of an advantage. The reason I don’t think Bowser’s spring strength is correct was because of Ocelot’s defeat against Pac-Man. Even using Pac-Man’s best numbers wouldn’t put Bowser to where he’s ranked from the spring (even using Ganondorf as base). Another thing that might hurt Ryu is that this is his first Nintendo/Square match since Samus in 2k2 and with the WDF and all we really don’t know how well or bad he would’ve done.

After the board vote whether he wins it or not, Ryu will take the night vote. He went 50/50 with Sonic before losing 56/44 and I don’t think Bowser is as strong as Sonic, whether or not he gets a big enough lead is still unknown. In this match there will be people calling the match too soon, a comeback and mass whining. Will Nintendo lose its third character or will Ryu be the 5th to last Capcom character to leave.

charmander6000’s Bracket: Ryu over Bowser

charmander6000’s Prediction: Ryu wins, 50.23% - 49.77%

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

*says nothing about the blasphemy in the first line of charmander's analysis, as it need not be said*
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

My point is that it's a futile exercise to try to rely on one match that we thought was an anomaly to justify the validity of the stats. Any match that is significantly off based on a previous year's stats can probably be justified by saying something like "BUT GUYS UNADJUSTED 2K4 TAILS PREDICTS THIS PERFECTLY!121!1" Guess what? There's just as many matches that point to something entirely different happening. Think about that before you take the stats so seriously. As Ulti and others have said, each match has a different voting pool, so different things can happen.
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That... was her final mission. And like a true soldier, she saw it through the end.
ZSB [aX]

Honestly, trying to work out the stats is an exercise in curiosity for me more than anything. Trying to figure out what goes where is just fun. Compiling evidence that points to a particular result DOES give validity to a certain claim, though it does not necessarily mean it's correct. It's not really about being "right" or "wrong." It's about trying to find what fits where. After all, the stats are basically a puzzle that needs to be put together. So I like to mess around with the numbers and see what comes up. If I'm wrong, I really don't care. We've all made plenty of mistakes with this, and we're sure to make plenty more. Seeing how previous results seemingly pointed to a future result occurring is quite interesting, at least to me. Numbers and statistics pique my curiosity. I would rather speculate than just sit back and let it happen.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

I personally think that this is a completely different voter pool, like not even close. I think Ramza would be at the VFL if he was in this year's tournament. I'm just not confident in anything but FF7 and Nintendo right now.

take, for example, this match. I don't believe anyone thought Tidus was actually at 24%, yet people are saying how 2k4 predicted this perfectly. if that's so, then why didn't you believe the number? and if you did, then why did you take Tidus? and if you did neither, well... congrats. I don't think Chichiri or anyone expected 58%.

anyway, I'm probably not going to be home for the start of this match, so I'm calling for Kirby to have 31% of the brackets. hopefully the start is good to Ryu.
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http://picturesofwalls.com

and yeah, I like playing with numbers too. that's why the stats are so interesting to me, even if I don't believe they're linear or even accurate half of the time.
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http://picturesofwalls.com

yet people are saying how 2k4 predicted this perfectly. if that's so, then why didn't you believe the number?

There were still plenty of potential outcomes due to our SFF-ridden 2004 bracket. It just turns out that one potential outcome seems closer to being correct than others.

I wouldn't take Ramza to beat Tidus head-to-head, but he certainly wouldn't be near the VFL. I would definitely take him against some low midcarders, Tails for example. I would most certainly take him over Kefka.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

dude, Leon, how can you dispute the site's shift towards Nintendo this year? every single SSBM character has performed much better than any stats expected. i can't explain wht the site's demograph shifted, but after watching Mario, Ness, Samus, Ganondorf, Zelda, Kirby, Bowser, DK, Luigi, and Yoshi perform so well so far, it seems hardly coincidental that the Nintendo characters all seem stronger.

watch, now - Bowser will crush Ryu tomorrow (well, maybe not crush, but i predict he will break at least 55%) and DK will give MC a very close match if not beat him.

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"Start wearing purple, for me now. All your sanity and wits, they will all vanish, i promise. It's just a matter of time..."

But the shifts aren't anything extraordinary, for the most part. Ganondorf is really the only one so far who has shown signs of clearlysurpassing his 2004 number. We really don't know anything about Mario because he faced a newbie and Ness. Samus wasn't too far off against Frog (though I was still pretty impressed). DK did worse than what he was supposed to do against Sam Fisher. Luigi will likely be explained this round when he faces Tifa, but he certainly did look good. I'll admit that. The others have been right around where they're supposed to be. Maybe a little higher, but still not far off.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

And I'm starting to get more into Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. It's pretty good. The fight against Master Hand and Crazy Hand was awesome stuff, and it's cool being able to suck in Master Hand and get Kirby's SSBM moveset.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5

There are random enemies that give Kirby his SSBM moveset too, even though I don't really remember what they are. <_<
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I need to put something here.

This game has some Kirby abilities I haven't seen before. Granted, I haven't played a lot of Kirby games, but it's kinda neat.
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It's just not the same without this name.
Faithful supporter of Squall Leonhart in SC2K5