GameFAQs Contests

Lopen posted...

xp1337 posted...

I thought about that, but unless they took the time to only differ on meaningless matches and planned it out that they'd even it out this could backfire on them. They can't control outcomes. Well, okay, they could but that'd be taking this a bit too far!

Really, I think the amount of planning they'd need to do to have scores this good so far, plus be able to come up with plausible differences that ultimately end up into a tie might actually be more challenging than just predicting it straight. I mean, at that level of effort they might as well just take the board cookie, it'd be faster.

You're assuming they actually have physical brackets. I'm saying they have a score there that means nothing and the bracket is being built post results off of where the points are going.

I mean I'm not necessarily saying this is true, I'm just saying that it'd make a lot of sense!

Actually, I'm not! I'm saying that by giving themselves points, we can construct their bracket for them! They're locking themselves into a bracket as the contest goes along, but they can be caught if they don't monitor this. Like, say they missed Kefka, if Kefka wins R2 and they get points we've totally nailed them!

I mean, that'd be pretty sloppy of them, it wouldn't be too hard to prevent that kind of disaster from happening, but I kind of feel like the effort needed for that check is probably still higher than coming over to the board for a second and taking the guru cookie and making a few random changes.

I just think them coming here and taking the guru cookie requires less effort and is just much simpler for them than to set-up a fake bracket scheme! I mean, I guess they could have done that but it just seems so unnecessary!
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX

My Link vs John Cena hypothetical is shattered.

Pikachu gonna make them both tap out at the same time.

Say your prayers, eat your vitamins.

http://i.imgur.com/4fo4uqq.jpg
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Ace Detective for Hire
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Rad Link 5 posted...

My Link vs John Cena hypothetical is shattered.

Pikachu gonna make them both tap out at the same time.

Say your prayers, eat your vitamins.

http://i.imgur.com/4fo4uqq.jpg

"The most electrifying mouse in Poll Entertainment!"
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Two cuts in a row
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Karma Hunter posted...

TsunamiXXVIII posted...

Exactly why are we taking Pikachu's direct numbers on either one of these characters as meaning anything? That's not really the way these things work. For all we know, if you take one of those two characters out and make it a 1v1, Pikachu could end up getting like 95% of that character's votes--or he could only get 5% and end up looking even weaker. We don't know. I for one have to figure that we're dealing with three separate fanbases. I have no idea what proportion of Big Daddy's votes would go to Pikachu in a Pikachu vs. Lloyd 1v1 or what proportion of Lloyd's votes would go to him in a Pikachu-Big Daddy 1v1.

Well... duh? That's how these things work, that's why multiways are often very fluky and unreliable, even compared to 1v1s.

But it should mean something. The odds that Big Daddy would suddenly be crushing Lloyd if Pika wasn't here are very, very low indeed. Similarly, Pikachu's percentage on Lloyd is *probably* close to what he'd get 1v1. I'd use Big Daddy's percentages instead, but unless people want to estimate exactly how many Noble Niners Pikachu's going to decimate singlehandedly it's probably not worthwhile.

I meant that I doubt Pikachu would be doing as bad against either one of them alone as he's doing against both of them together.

...wait, just looked at what he's getting on them. That's...not that bad at all. Under 70% against Lloyd probably isn't what you'd want if you're trying to be a Noble Nine breaker, but almost 73% against Big Daddy is very good; far better than what Tifa did in 2010. I know we all want to know what this means for the big Crono-Pikachu showdown next round, but that's going to be a very different beast depending on how Magus-Otacon goes, so let's just sit back and focus on how the heck is Lloyd beating Big Daddy this comfortably? Tales characters have never looked terribly good, so I think maybe it's safest to say that Big Daddy was overrated by the 2010 X-stats. I mean, it wouldn't be completely out of the range of possibility. Big Daddy's from a 7th-generation game, so all of his "sprites" are very finely modeled 3D figures. FFVII sprites are...kind of ugly. Certainly not as bad as some sprite round chokers, but I could certainly see Big Daddy overperforming on Tifa due to the fact that his "sprites" aren't sprites.
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TsunamiXXVIII posted...

I meant that I doubt Pikachu would be doing as bad against either one of them alone as he's doing against both of them together.

Well yeah. That's kind of how multi-man polls work.
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Ace Detective for Hire
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Hmmm, I expected Big Daddy to take 2nd here. Even the EXPERT CHALLENGE in Division 6 is a headache
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The Great GameFAQs Character Battle IX contest: 41/46 pts
NP: Pikachu > Big Daddy > Lloyd Irving

4 cuts in a row, lead at 300
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POKEFEAR

Daddy is making a run for it though
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The King of Kings
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It's around time for the night vote to hit full swing, so if Big Daddy's going to make a move, it's gonna be now.
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Fails of Symphonia gonna Fail
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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

So Crono/Pikachu is going to be a Day Match. Is that an advantage for Pikachu?

Probably. By the time that match rolls around, we should have some ASV trends, although you might get a diluted ASV.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as SuperNiceDog, Guru Champ!

Fails of Symphonia: Dawn of the New Fail
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Ace Detective for Hire
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Alucard didn't until well after this point.
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Chrono Trigger and its characters have been on a ten-year decline.

Deny. Deny. DENY.

I stand by my position that the entirety of the known decline was between 2004 and 2007, and 2008 was a little better. As for the period since 2008, there isn't enough data to evaluate. Well, except maybe for Magus.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

Pikachu's percentage might end up being a little deflated relative to these guys if they end up duking it out in a close one for the rest of the match, but otherwise it shouldn't mean very much for him. Gauging him off this match is going to be unreliable (justifiably, it's three years later!), but otherwise fine.
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what wrestler can we compare Magus too that had an absolutely meteoric push and then plummeted to obscurity

i haven't followed enough recently to pick someone
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Die young and save yourself.
Brace for the G's, and fast heel-toe work.

The Miz?
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The night vote is split into two segments if you wanna get technical. There's the more US based night vote which is from about now till an hour or so and typically resembles the SNV, and the dead hours gradually more European dominated night vote that happens in about an hour and lasts till morning.

The only reason I realize there are two is because Master Chief doesn't start tanking until this first phase of the night vote ends, typically. Any self respecting Master Chief contest fan would know such.

What my point is is Big Daddy making strides now doesn't really necessarily mean he wins the night. I'd expect him to do best right now since Bioshock is a more western franchise and western franchises tend to do well during it.
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red sox 777 posted...

Chrono Trigger and its characters have been on a ten-year decline.

Deny. Deny. DENY.

I stand by my position that the entirety of the known decline was between 2004 and 2007, and 2008 was a little better. As for the period since 2008, there isn't enough data to evaluate. Well, except maybe for Magus.

We'll have decentish data this year, once and for all. For the record I was definitely impressed by Crono's final result in his poll - his start was awful (I cannot believe I am saying Chrono Trigger had a bad start, that's probably the single most power hour loaded entity in the entire goddamn contest series), but 63% of the total is no joke if you assume the vote ceiling is in play like I do. Meanwhile Pikachu's freefall is...not inspiring confidence at all. Everything once again hinges on Magus and Otacon. So what's it gonna be, Janus? Does the black wind howl?

Pikachu is going to hemorrage percentage overnight.

On another note, I saw the oft repeated comment about Crono winning updates against Samus again- that one is NOT surprising at all. Samus only beat Crono 55/45, and Crono is much stronger at the night vote, so it's not unusual for him to win updates after 11 PM, even without rallying (and there was a lot of rallying in that match). Recall that in 2005 he lost 54/46 to Mario and he actually won over the last 4 hours of the match (11 PM to 3 AM).
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

Jakyl25 posted...

The Miz?

LOL. Almost everytime someone mentions The Miz they ALWAYS reference when he main event'ed WM "that one time" LOL.
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The Great GameFAQs Character Battle IX contest: 41/46 pts
NP: Pikachu > Big Daddy > Lloyd Irving

All I remember about the ToS night vote is that I went to bed with ToS beating God of War easily and woke up to it losing. ToS actually did better in the 2nd half of the match than the 1st, despite the strong early vote. No idea what Big Daddy trends would be though.
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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

red sox 777 posted...

(and there was a lot of rallying in that match)

There certainly was.
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Chrono Trigger and its characters have been on a ten-year decline.

Deny. Deny. DENY.

I stand by my position that the entirety of the known decline was between 2004 and 2007, and 2008 was a little better. As for the period since 2008, there isn't enough data to evaluate. Well, except maybe for Magus.

We'll have decentish data this year, once and for all.

I don't think so. Crono needs to escape R2 for us to get a decent measuring stick on CT at all I'd wager, and I still feel better with Pikachu. Crono is certainly a solid tier above Pikachu and then some, but being brought down by Magus is going to hurt hard. And if Pika escapes a Crono+Magus pack, there's no good way in evaluating where either one stands this year.
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Guys, what's the point of me ignoring BT if you're all going to quote him and make me read his terrible Fails puns?
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SuperNiceDog: Bracket: Good, Taste: Bad

I think we an avoid pointless bickering with this contest format:
-All 1v1
-No match pictures. Names only.
-Anyone with any ambiguity to their names (whether because they've had more than one, or because they share their name with another fictional character) is banned from the contest.
-No one is allowed to have a match against someone from the same game, series, company or console. If you draw such an opponent, the bracket is re-drawn to avoid it. If it reaches a point where such a match cannot be avoided, the contest will end there, and everyone who is either on the leaderboard, or would have been on the leaderboard if not for some matches going differently than they expected will receive a prize.
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Ace Detective for Hire
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Well, unless Magus somehow stands up to Crono now, I wouldn't expect Crono to lose any more than 5% from LFF, and probably less than that. Cloud only lost 6% with Sephiroth.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

Also, confession: I voted for Lloyd just to make Pikachu look worse for next round. Otherwise I'd have voted for Pikachu. In retrospect, this was a bad strategy. The optimal choice to make Crono look as strong as possible is clearly to vote Pikachu this round.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

red sox 777 posted...

Well, unless Magus somehow stands up to Crono now, I wouldn't expect Crono to lose any more than 5% from LFF, and probably less than that. Cloud only lost 6% with Sephiroth.

Didn't Cloud/Snake essentially go from 57-43 to 50-50 in 2008? Not to mention Kirby was in that match, who if removed almost certainly helps Snake, so Seph probably hurts Cloud even more than that relatively.
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red sox 777 posted...

Also, confession: I voted for Lloyd just to make Pikachu look worse for next round. Otherwise I'd have voted for Pikachu. In retrospect, this was a bad strategy. The optimal choice to make Crono look as strong as possible is clearly to vote Pikachu this round.

You really should've thought this through more.
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Lopen posted...

The night vote is split into two segments if you wanna get technical. There's the more US based night vote which is from about now till an hour or so and typically resembles the SNV, and the dead hours gradually more European dominated night vote that happens in about an hour and lasts till morning.

This is somewhat relevant, I guess:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AgBWiYjlMLwYdHpEYmJDdktneHBQQXNoVXdLcUY3cEE&gid=2

It's a weekend poll, although it would be relevant here as most of this contest will take place without any ASV trends.

The US based night vote lasts until about 3:00 AM. After 4:00 AM, the US starts to drop off really fast, which also marks the same time that guys like Crono and Mega Man also collapse when Europe's vote intake surpasses North America's vote intake for a brief period of time.
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Luster Soldier --- ~Shield Bearer~ | ~Data Analyst~
Popular at school, but not as cool as SuperNiceDog, Guru Champ!

Didn't Cloud/Snake essentially go from 57-43 to 50-50 in 2008? Not to mention Kirby was in that match, who if removed almost certainly helps Snake, so Seph probably hurts Cloud even more than that relatively.

That's the series of matches I was referring to. Now Kirby leeching Snake- that's interesting. Probably fairly minimal though.

I'm expecting Crono to at least triple Magus, whereas Cloud was at the doubling on Sephiroth. CT draws votes from a smaller pool of people than FFVII, so given the same percentages LFF would probably hurt a little more- but CT is still a very big game here, so probably not hugely more. I'm counting on Crono being to SFF Magus hard enough that the damage will be less than Cloud/Sephiroth.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

xp1337 posted...

Actually, I'm not! I'm saying that by giving themselves points, we can construct their bracket for them! They're locking themselves into a bracket as the contest goes along, but they can be caught if they don't monitor this. Like, say they missed Kefka, if Kefka wins R2 and they get points we've totally nailed them!

They have access to the source code - one of them could be secretly tampering with the results!

The results for this match could have Lloyd and Big Daddy reversed! Then this match and Missile/Kerrigan make much more sense. Hmmm...we could be onto something.

Let's see if the rest of this division makes more sense with switched votes!
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You really should've thought this through more.

I know. I've been so consistent about this for years. I voted for Sonic against Snake in 2006, even though I liked Snake more. Then I voted for Snake against Samus, even though I liked Samus more. In 2010, I voted for Missingno against Yoshi and Sephiroth. Because Crono's position in the extrapolated standings is the only thing that matters in these contests
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

red sox 777 posted...

Didn't Cloud/Snake essentially go from 57-43 to 50-50 in 2008? Not to mention Kirby was in that match, who if removed almost certainly helps Snake, so Seph probably hurts Cloud even more than that relatively.

That's the series of matches I was referring to. Now Kirby leeching Snake- that's interesting. Probably fairly minimal though.

I'm expecting Crono to at least triple Magus, whereas Cloud was at the doubling on Sephiroth. CT draws votes from a smaller pool of people than FFVII, so given the same percentages LFF would probably hurt a little more- but CT is still a very big game here, so probably not hugely more. I'm counting on Crono being to SFF Magus hard enough that the damage will be less than Cloud/Sephiroth.

Possible, Crono/Magus is naturally a 70/30 SFF matchup whereas Cloud/Seph is like 55/45 naturally, and Cloud turned that into the doubling. However, it's gonna be *real* hard I think for Crono to get that tripling due to the effort in increasing percentage when you're that high, and on top of that Pikachu's strength is gonna elevate above his normal level because Nintendo smells blood in the water (kind of like what happened to Snake at the beginning of his match last contest). It's a very shaky proposition.
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Okay yeah just took a look at Europe trends so far.

BOLD...ish... PREDICTION: Lloyd is never in danger of losing this match and stalls or slowly extends his lead during the night vote, starts extending lead more during the morning.
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No problem!
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Well, Lloyd has extended his lead to a match-high 328.
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I can't understand Big Daddy popularity
I started Bioshock a week ago and I just passed the "would you kindly" part
And I always thought Big Daddy was some kind of main character,,,not a "mini boss"
If people had better test Sanders Cohen would beat Lloyd now

And while he's never been one of my favorite characters and I'm betting against him like crazy in my bracket, I can't help but feel a kind of kinship with Crono this year because it feels like he's being put through the same gauntlet that Snake was in 2005, where he's gonna have to fight and claw tooth and nail just to make it to the semifinals and prove that he deserves a seat at the table with the rest of the Noble Nine.

It'll break my bracket, but it'll cheer me a little if he can.
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Man, and I was really thinking about Lloyd > Big Daddy, but I felt like if I did, Big Daddy would make me look stupid and I'd have more ground to make up in EC.
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red sox 777 posted...

You really should've thought this through more.

I know. I've been so consistent about this for years. I voted for Sonic against Snake in 2006, even though I liked Snake more. Then I voted for Snake against Samus, even though I liked Samus more. In 2010, I voted for Missingno against Yoshi and Sephiroth. Because Crono's position in the extrapolated standings is the only thing that matters in these contests

you know, say nothing else about red sox but you have got to admire his commitment.
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Well, if he can get past Pikachu, he's well on his way to giving Snake a free pass into the finals, which is his ceiling for this contest. If Pikachu can't beat him, I doubt Fox or the weaker of the two Pokemon Trainers will come anywhere close.
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ChenKenichiFan posted...

Well, if he can get past Pikachu, he's well on his way to giving Snake a free pass into the finals, which is his ceiling for this contest. If Pikachu can't beat him, I doubt Fox or the weaker of the two Pokemon Trainers will come anywhere close.

Hey, it's not Magus, but Sora can't exactly help Crono in Round 3.

And don't rag on Fox...! There's a good chance if Pika continues freefalling that he'll have scored higher on Lloyd than the Pokemon!!
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I don't think Crono's going to hurt Cloud very much. 1-2% maybe. Granted, that may be more than Cloud can afford against Snake.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

Karma Hunter posted...

And while he's never been one of my favorite characters and I'm betting against him like crazy in my bracket, I can't help but feel a kind of kinship with Crono this year because it feels like he's being put through the same gauntlet that Snake was in 2005, where he's gonna have to fight and claw tooth and nail just to make it to the semifinals and prove that he deserves a seat at the table with the rest of the Noble Nine.

It'll break my bracket, but it'll cheer me a little if he can.

That was my first full contest after delving into MGS, and Snake did me proud that year.

In fact, Snake's only been getting better and better since I became a fan of the franchise!
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Yeah, I don't expect Crono to do much of anything to Cloud. He hasn't in the past, but against Snake, every little bit matters, in all likelihood.
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Pikachu below 54%. I wonder how low the night will take him.....
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

There's a non-trivial chance Snake's straight up stronger than Cloud now. Crono's probably the best neutral option we can get into that match, but three-ways won't tell us anything conclusive no matter what. That's also why I can't get terribly excited over the prospect of Snake > Link right now (this will easily change if it actually happens) because if it comes to pass it's just so obviously fraudulent.

Call me crazy, but I got a lot more of a thrill seeing Snake post 48% on Cloud than I did when he beat Cloud with Seph strangling him from behind.
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Yeah, Snake could be Cloud straight up regardless of who's there. That's definitely a possibility.

And yeah, a 1-on-1 win is ultimately the most satisfying thing because there are no excuses for the other character to blame a loss on.
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