GameFAQs Contests
Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1029
From: KamikazePotato | #049 What? Absolutely not. We have years worth of contest results, non-contest polls, polls from other sites, sales figures, general media exposure, and tons of other stuff which allows us to base our predictions on logic, not luck. The fact that we know Captain Olimar loses to Mario on every big website in the world has nothing to do with luck. Even in 2002, when we were blind as bats, we knew that characters like Mario and Sonic were going to outclass Little Mac and Pitfall Harry. Luck can make or break some brackets but usually doesn't. --- Yoblazer: http://i43.tinypic.com/25z1non.jpg Watch and you'll see... someday I'll be... part of your world! |
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Someone
who picked Cloud in 2003 because he likes Cloud more got lucky. Someone
who picked Cloud because he anticipated a Kingdom Hearts boost and
because he discredited the Cloud/Mario match made an outstanding
prediction. I picked Cloud because I thought Link/Mario was major SFF and Link would get anti-voted for being the champion. Looking back, it feels both prescient and so, so, wrong. --- 2002 Link, 2003 Cloud, 2004 Link, 2005 Link, 2006 Link, 2008 Link, 2010 Link, 2011 Cloud. Link 6, Cloud 2 |
From: PartOfYourWorld | #048 It's not even flipping a 60/40. It's essentially flipping 56/44 to 50/50-ish and then getting some SFF. Mario doesn't beat Samus 60/40 without SFF. The Nintendo Boost just put Mario in a more advantageous position to be a beneficiary of it. But I think you're underestimating how much Mario was helped by that boost by talking about how the stats pointed "a bit" more in her direction. It was more than a bit. It was clearly favoring Samus. You had to fly in the face of direct results with Crono and Cloud to pick Mario over Samus. And I can appreciate the risk involved, but I don't know why you keep wanting to act like Mario wasn't noticeably stronger in 2005 than he was in 2004. There's very little denying that he was. The result against Crono very clearly demonstrates it because Crono didn't appear to change much in strength from 2004 to 2005. Mario changed 53/47 against him to 53/47 for him, not much different than what he would've had to do to turn a match with Samus into 50/50. --- "Why must we always choose between certain death and probable death?" "I'm in an epic battle to the death, FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF!" |
From: PartOfYourWorld | #051 And yet upsets few people predicted usually end up deciding who wins the contest. The majority of matches can be determined by logic, but winning a contest requires some calculated risk and some luck. Maybe it's the fact that this contest has been a ridiculous exception to this rule that's making us think otherwise, but if you picked Trainers/Fighters > Samus, you're taking a calculated risk, but you're also hoping to get a little lucky because there's not much to go on to suggest either character beats Samus in any format. You may have some logic behind your pick, but your logic being correct is a bit of luck, in my opinion, because though our picks may be logical, they're not always right. There's really nothing insulting about getting lucky, honestly. --- http://img.imgcake.com/nio/26leonpngat.png http://img.imgcake.com/nio/daigohadoupnguj.png |
Luck makes or breaks every
bracket. L-Block. Link>Snake. Majora's Mask. Try seriously taking
any of those pre-contest and the stats topic would've laughed you out of
the place. We are very good at revisionist history here, so people
often get an inflated sense of how much their predictions matter, but
the fact of the matter is that at a certain point analysis dies and luck
takes over. When you know pretty much everything about contests, you
should also recognize how much of it is a crapshoot (this contest
aside). --- Black Turtle did a pretty good job. |
The
thing is Mario probably didn't win in 2005 because he was actually
stronger than Samus, but because of SFF. The match would have been very
even without SFF. Going along with my 55% on 2004 Mario guess in my
previous post, Samus would have still been stronger in 2005- even
without any Nintendo boost on her part. Link didn't seem to catch
anything either, so that's a possibility, though Samus getting a boost
with the rest of Nintendo is also possible. --- 2002 Link, 2003 Cloud, 2004 Link, 2005 Link, 2006 Link, 2008 Link, 2010 Link, 2011 Cloud. Link 6, Cloud 2 |
Luck
is important, but not the #1 factor. There's a reason why a large
majority of stats topic people consistently score in the 99th percentile
every year. And those who don't are usually those who took a very big
risk late in the bracket that didn't pan out. --- 2002 Link, 2003 Cloud, 2004 Link, 2005 Link, 2006 Link, 2008 Link, 2010 Link, 2011 Cloud. Link 6, Cloud 2 |
From: LeonhartFour | #053 I'm trying to act like there is nothing more than a very minute possibility that Samus could have gone even with Mario in any other year, because there isn't. And yes, the Mario crew did get stronger (not denying that), but the size of the boosts wasn't so huge as to suddenly make a 60/40 out of a 50/50. Recall Yoshi's final match against Mega Man that year. Luigi also still lost easily to Tifa, who then lost easily to Sonic. Heck, Mario's win over Snake was identical to what Mega Man did against Snake in 2004. Same percentage and everything. I'll grant you that Bowser looked beastly, but there's still reason to toss his performance against Snake out the window. --- Yoblazer: http://8board.webs.com/ariel.jpg Watch and you'll see... someday I'll be... part of your world! |
From: KamikazePotato | #055 I think you're forgetting the large majority of matches where luck isn't involved. What if the same guy who took Majora to win also tried to "get lucky" by taking Morrowind over Melee? Well, there goes his bracket. How come none of us tried to "get lucky" by taking Amaterasu's team over Link's? There's a possibility, however small, that this contest ends with an upset - such as Mario, Cloud, or Pokemon winning. Even if that happens, the best bracket is almost certainly one that would have had to balance the luck with a ton of matches where luck wasn't a factor. Even if you call Pokemon Trainers winning the contest, it does you no good if you have Cloud and Link losing in R1. --- Yoblazer: http://i32.tinypic.com/zlf1w7.gif Watch and you'll see... someday I'll be... part of your world! |
Assuming
it happens, if you guys say people who took Trainers >
Samus/Fighters "got lucky", because the stats don't say it's possible,
I'm gonna laugh so hard. --- "I am riding the Poke-wave, using the metaphorical Surf and hopping on my Blastoise, all the way to Mario vs Bowser." - RPGLord |
Most
of the people with Trainers > Samus probably actually think that
result is more likely to happen than Samus > Trainers. I know that's
my position. Same with Cloud > Link this year. I do indulge upset
specials, which are calculated risks that I think more likely than not
to be wrong, but could be advantageous because very few people take
them. Or I just want to indulge Crono fanboyism and can't help myself. --- 2002 Link, 2003 Cloud, 2004 Link, 2005 Link, 2006 Link, 2008 Link, 2010 Link, 2011 Cloud. Link 6, Cloud 2 |
From: KamikazePotato | #055 ^5 --- .,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.~*ST*~.,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,. "The best way to troll someone is to tell them the truth." -Liquid Wind |
What's Moltar's email? --- GameFAQs isn't going to be merged in with GameSpot or any other site. We're not going to strip out the soul of the site. -CJayC |
I thought a doubling might be much but over 70%?That is insane. --- GameFaqs is NOT the place to go for relationship advice.Nobody here gets any action unless it is their right or left hand.Including me.~Dawn and Dusk~ |
Insanity that this would exactly replicate a match between the two 7 years ago? >_> http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=1638 Mario/Sonic is SFF, I don't quite understand how the SFF works since its thrown up weirdness especially involving Shadow but its certainly not transitive strength. Bowser is the much stronger rival to Robotnik, this was inevitable. I'd still be interest to see a character 1v1 as I think its different stakes when you isolate Mario the character from Mario the game. --- Smurf , The Cream of Knuckles Fanboyism |
I
don't think the strength of the rival really matters all that much in
some instances. If that were to be the case, Sora should have netted a
much more decisive victory against Dante. --- "Go get me Jared...from Subway!" -- CM Punk This line reserved for Rivalry Guru winner. |
I
don't think the strength of the rival really matters all that much in
some instances. If that were to be the case, Sora should have netted a
much more decisive victory against Dante. That just simply means that Dante is probably stronger than Sora by a decent margin now. Not that surprising considering that Bowser absolutely trounced Sora last year, MVC3 boosted Dante is probably on par with Bowser. |
Not really. Dante would beat Sora 1v1. The presence of the other characters helped Sora/Riku to victory. --- Praise the Black Turtle, Game of the Decade Guru Champ. (Well, I never promised creativity, did I?!) |
I
don't really understand why so many people are putting so much value in
the whole rivalry aspect to the contest. It seems like people on here
keep looking at the matches like Vergil versus Riku or Bowser versus
Robotnik. If we had dual polls running and the combined score moved on
that would be the way to figure it out for sure... But how many voters
do you think looked at yesterdays poll and said, "Oh I hate that gay
Sora, but I will vote for him since Riku is there"? The top 2 characters
are deciding 95% of how these matches go a few might boost from rivalry
ala Ryu Ken but for the most part I can't imagine people are putting
that much thought into these polls especially with such a low interest
in the contest to begin with... |
KamikazePotato posted... Luck makes or breaks every bracket. L-Block. Link>Snake. Majora's Mask. Try seriously taking any of those pre-contest and the stats topic would've laughed you out of the place. We are very good at revisionist history here, so people often get an inflated sense of how much their predictions matter, but the fact of the matter is that at a certain point analysis dies and luck takes over. When you know pretty much everything about contests, you should also recognize how much of it is a crapshoot (this contest aside). Except when the board makes completely wrong predictions based more on sheer fanboyism than any logic (GSC > Majora's Mask for starters). Or when the board relies too heavily on stats instead of common sense (Samus > Mario). It amazes me that people like Leon can still be butthurt about being so wrong almost 6 years later. --- Game of the Decade? More like Guru of the Decade mirite? |
Because
there's clear evidence that matches are going differently to how they
would 1v1. Pokemon Trainers putting 78% on Luigi/Waluigi is a good
example. --- Praise the Black Turtle, Game of the Decade Guru Champ. (Well, I never promised creativity, did I?!) |
Iamthekuzalol posted... I don't think the strength of the rival really matters all that much in some instances. If that were to be the case, Sora should have netted a much more decisive victory against Dante. That just simply means that Dante is probably stronger than Sora by a decent margin now. Not that surprising considering that Bowser absolutely trounced Sora last year, MVC3 boosted Dante is probably on par with Bowser. If MVC3 can boost Dante that much, Mario better watch out next round. --- Game of the Decade? More like Guru of the Decade mirite? |
While
we have seen that the rivalry does matter in some instances, I don't
think it's going to be a constant thing at all and it's probably not
going to be very measurable. Sora/Riku and Dante/Vergil are both
considered good rivalries, so despite the fact that Riku is much
stronger than Vergil, it's not going to have that big of an effect on
Sora and Dante themselves. Compare that to WaLuigi or Crono/Lavos, where the rivalry is obviously bad, and the votes reflect that. --- "Go get me Jared...from Subway!" -- CM Punk This line reserved for Rivalry Guru winner. |
Hey
Creativename, what does your "Tag Team" naive analysis say about
Mario/X next round? I've got a hunch that it's going to be scarily close
based on the Mega Man/Zero and Mario/Bowser 2004 matches. X/Zero for
whatever reason won't have as much SFF as Mario/Bowser. --- Game of the Decade? More like Guru of the Decade mirite? |
From: Osfan | #070 It's not that people think about it long or hard, but people can easily have an instant gut-level reaction to a rivalry that differs from the lead character by itself. Like I look at the bracket and see Luigi/Waluigi, and Crono/Lavos, and am just like "...really?" And you can tell they suffered for it in the total voting population. From: Wii_TuRtLe | #071 Nothing to do with fanboyism. GSC didn't lose to MM by much even with RBY in the same poll the year before that. You're nuts if you think GSC was favored for any reason other than that. |
Common
sense helps, but these contests have gone against common sense. Even
taking into account that this is SquareFAQs Crono should never had been a
noble nine character, Amaterasu should have been weak... --- BOP Results: http://www.freewebs.com/charmander6000/Rivalry%20BOP.xls Rivalry Rumble: 57/64 Today: Mario/Bowser |
charmander6000 posted... Common sense helps, but these contests have gone against common sense. Even taking into account that this is SquareFAQs Crono should never had been a noble nine character, Amaterasu should have been weak... While I agree about Ammy, Chrono Trigger is one of the strongest games on the site. Crono being NN level isn't surprising. Him being #4 or #5 on the site in the early years maybe. --- Game of the Decade? More like Guru of the Decade mirite? |
GSC > Majora's Mask was definitely logical Faulty, yes, but logical. --- http://i498.photobucket.com/albums/rr345/Rakaputra/pjbasis.png |
In
hindsight, Majora getting SFFed just as badly as GSC did makes decent
enough sense. It's just that I wouldn't have considered it enough to
take it in my bracket. Even then, it wouldn't have done me good because
I was never going to have it win the entire tournament. --- "Go get me Jared...from Subway!" -- CM Punk This line reserved for Rivalry Guru winner. |
But
calling people who took Majora's Mask > GSC "lucky" is underplaying
it. Luck had nothing to do with it. They found a way to rationalize it
in their head, and made a correct prediction. The only way "luck" ever becomes a factor in these contests is if you predict a rally or bandwagon. Something has to happen in between a contest starting and the match in question. The internet rallying around a joke character like L-Block can be attributed to luck. Majora's Mask final matches could be called very lucky, as it arguably doesn't win if there's no Smash Bros Brawl backlash. A character getting a new game announced mid-contest, boosting them, would also be luck. Outside of factors like this, luck does not exist. It's just hard numbers and common sense in predicting how voters will vote. For the vast majority of matches, luck does not have any role to play. People seem to be looking at correctly picking upsets as "getting lucky." An "upset" happening can have nothing to do with luck. It looks likely Trainers > Fighters will be a future result, which is a guru upset, but the people who took the trainers are in no way lucky. They correctly predicted that the Trainers would be worth more than the sum of their parts in this contest format, and would have the nostalgia vote. That's not luck, that's just using their brain and making a smart prediction. My two cents. --- Tofa7 - LoZ-LoD | Hardcore "Thank you, thank you, no applause necessary, just send money..." |
It wasn't so much assuming that MM got SFF'd as it was looking at that match and realizing it was very weird --- Game of the Decade? More like Guru of the Decade mirite? |
From: pjbasis | #079 The problem with that was it was based purely on logic and results prior. If it's a debatable match and Zelda is involved, you with Zelda all the time. Especially one that imo was overpowered in that tournament. I don't know how many serious bracket makers had MM going all the way to the semis but I did. --- http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5716/linkpron.gif |
From: -Tofa7- | #081 I agree with this.I've had a lot of "major" upset picks over the last 2 years go for me. OoT>FFVII, Snake>Seph and MM>GsC being recent ones. This one I got Cloud>Link. Logic says Link will win. I say Cloud/seph have a far bigger and better rivalry than Link/Ganon. We'll see. MM>GSC was clear for me because you don't vote against Zelda in a tight match. --- http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5716/linkpron.gif |
Except
it's not hard numbers. No matter how well you rationalize upsets,
there are always some variables you can't control. I rationalized
taking Chell/GLaDoS over Frog/Magus (and Alucard/Dracula) based on the
increased exposure for the individual characters since Portal 2 came
out, not to mention just how many people have played Portal. But though
we knew there had been an increase in popularity for GLaDoS since last
contest, it's not like we knew exactly how big that swing was or if it'd
be big enough to swing those matches. That's where the luck comes in
as someone predicting those matches from the start. Sure, you're not
depending on big outside chances like a joke rally from hell, but you're
still making a guess based off inconclusive data that still leaves the
match being able to go either way at the end of the day. --- http://www.nbc.com/parks-and-recreation/exclusives/ron-dancing-animated.gif |
The_Djoker posted... From: pjbasis | #079 GSC > Majora's Mask was definitely logical Faulty, yes, but logical. The problem with that was it was based purely on logic and results prior. If it's a debatable match and Zelda is involved, you with Zelda all the time. Especially one that imo was overpowered in that tournament. I don't know how many serious bracket makers had MM going all the way to the semis but I did. I know I did. And I ended up winning the Guru as a result. Didn't think it had enough in it to beat FFX and Brawl though. That's another example of how people who did take it thinking about the OoT proxy factor made a skilled prediction, not a lucky one. --- Game of the Decade? More like Guru of the Decade mirite? |
Mario/Bowser are doing better than Link did in 2010 at the 12 hour mark, which is where Link/Sonic ended. Heh. --- Praise the Black Turtle, Game of the Decade Guru Champ. (Well, I never promised creativity, did I?!) |
It would be funny if Cloud and Sephiroth defeats Link and Ganondorf only to lose to Mario and Bowser. --- BOP Results: http://www.freewebs.com/charmander6000/Rivalry%20BOP.xls Rivalry Rumble: 57/64 Today: Mario/Bowser |
It would be funny if Cloud and Sephiroth defeats Link and Ganondorf only to lose to Mario and Bowser. That wouldn't be funny at all. It's what I've expected all along. (Well, I expect Link to beat Cloud, but if Link loses to Cloud then Mario wins it all. I've said that since the bracket was announced.) |
It'd
be funny in the sense that Cloud would be like "finally I have defeated
Link after all these years and now I can claim my..." *loses to Mario* "goddammit" and the future refused to change. --- BOP Results: http://www.freewebs.com/charmander6000/Rivalry%20BOP.xls Rivalry Rumble: 57/64 Today: Mario/Bowser |
That would be horrifying and awful, and it has no chance of happening. --- 2002 Link, 2003 Cloud, 2004 Link, 2005 Link, 2006 Link, 2008 Link, 2010 Link, 2011 Cloud. Link 6, Cloud 2 |
If Cloud beats Link, he doesn't stand a chance in the finals. "Square always wins", etc. --- *huggles* |
Better yet, Cloud/Seph beat Link, but lose to X/Zero in the finals. I think I would soil myself if that happened. --- Game of the Decade? More like Guru of the Decade mirite? |
From: Wii_TuRtLe | #086 no i had it losing to FFX, and if Melee beat Brawl FFX would have won that match and Melee would have won the contest. God damn Brawl. --- http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5716/linkpron.gif |
I
never thought of that, i have Cloud>Link and then Cloud>Mario but
if Cloud beats Link the backlash....i don't want to think about it. --- http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5716/linkpron.gif |
If
Cloud beats Link, he's way too strong to lose to Mario any time. If
the backlash were going to be that strong, he wouldn't beat Link in the
first place. --- 2002 Link, 2003 Cloud, 2004 Link, 2005 Link, 2006 Link, 2008 Link, 2010 Link, 2011 Cloud. Link 6, Cloud 2 |
True
but i still think Mario/Bowser would get a decent % on Cloud/Seph if
that was the final anyway, just because of the rivalry factor, it's the
reason why i picked Cloud over Link, because ganondorf sucks. --- http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5716/linkpron.gif |
bringing it up again because it got no traction 2 minutes before match time and because this match is garbage - I think Squall has a huge anchor in Seifer, not because of his assumed lack of strength but because it ties him to FF8 alone. it's not really a fair comparison since it's ten years old and only one match, but Squall got doubled by pre-Brawl Snake. if this match is about FF8 vs. the KH series and we're comparing rivalries, I'm not sure Squall comes out looking too good there. obviously this is a super reductionist view and is designed to show Squall in a bad light but it's worth bringing up. his performances in round 1 and 2 have not been all that stellar either (though not objectively bad, not that they've had any real matches) --- add the c and back away iphonesience |
Squall was fine in the first two rounds, Laharl isn't super weak and Nightmare has shown to have strength from before. Sora and Riku didn't exactly impress either against Dante/Vergil --- BOP Results: http://www.freewebs.com/charmander6000/Rivalry%20BOP.xls Rivalry Rumble: 57/64 Today: Mario/Bowser |
FFX would have beat Melee comfortably during the GOTD. --- caps |
