Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1307 GameFAQs Contests

What do we think? Does Geralt have another comeback in him? Doing some decent stalling right now.

I think he's too far behind, but I thought merely hitting 40% would be a good ending for his run. The fact that he may finish at like 47 is amazing.

LusterSoldier posted...

squexa posted...

So how strong do we think Zelda is after tonight? From my rough estimates, I suspect she'll end up somewhere around 60%ish or perhaps a bit below after the Europe vote ends.

Zelda probably finishes around 61% by the end of this match. That would only be around a 4% improvement over their 2006 match. If Aerith's strength remains the same as it was in 2006, this means that Zelda got a much smaller boost than we originally thought. This might just be enough to threaten someone like Sonic or Sephiroth, but would put her out of reach of Snake unless he's collapsed big time.

To be fair, Zelda was on roids in 2006. I think she'd put up ~53% normally so I do think she's gaining a noticeable boost. And based on Aeris' performance on Fox and how well the other Final Fantasy female leads (the jury is still out on Yuna) have been holding up, I see no reason to suspect a big decline for Aeris.

I think Samus probably boosted in 2005, with the rest of Nintendo. But probably not as much as Mario. RSFF has always made sense to me intuitively, and Mario > Samus may be the best evidence we're ever going to get of it.

I will point out that Lopen is the only one of us who got Mario/Samus anything close to right before the match. Lots of people picked Mario but mostly with stuff like 51%. Lopen called Mario with 60%, and he can correct me if I'm wrong but the only basis for that prediction would have been expecting major SFF, not expecting Mario to boost 16 points while Samus stayed still.

CaptainOfCrush posted...

Zelda's next match will begin 24 hours after GameFAQs sees Link reemerge and slaughter his opposition again, which means the fanbase can kinda leave her alone (I do think she's gotten at least some arbitrary boost from Link being gone). If Snake struggles to win despite that, then I think it will be due to a combination of him losing strength AND her having legit N9 crushing power. And I can't even envision him losing; that would be the most shocking result of the contest for me.

I don’t agree with Zelda being a proxy. Voters aren’t that smart.

squexa posted...

To be fair, Zelda was on roids in 2006.

I don't think that would really be too much different from our present day situation where Zelda has probably boosted from BotW (and with Smash Ultimate soon to arrive) and where our userbase has shrunk so much that nostalgia for Nintendo (and the 1990s) has gone way up.

Nintendo boosted in 2005 because of the Revolution reveal, right? Makes sense that it would have helped Mario more.

Yeah. I didn't think for sure that Mario had boosted until the rounds after Samus in 05. And honestly the more I think about it the more convinced Mario > Samus in 04 ends very similarly to 05. Probably not worse than 57-43 Mario. Mario boosting slightly more than Samus makes sense but they probably both boosted. And 2k4 Samus boosting pretty much at all is still stronger than 2k5 Mario on raw stats

It's kinda weird Samus was slightly dropped in 05 when everyone else in Nintendo went up, and Samus went up in 06 because... what was the explanation-- female bracket momentum? I don't know.

CaptainOfCrush posted...

Nintendo boosted in 2005 because of the Revolution reveal, right? Makes sense that it would have helped Mario more.

I wouldn't attribute it to any one time thing like that. The shift in a lot of ways was permanent.

Knowing what we know about rallies now, it's pretty clear that 2002-3 Mario was way overpowered by rallies and wouldn't have come close to Cloud or Crono otherwise. That was Squarefaqs, where non-Link Nintendo characters needed help to beat Square characters of their caliber. And it's been Nintendofaqs ever since 2005, basically without interruption.

Mac Arrowny posted...

I'd agree that Geralt's benefiting from a bandwagon effect, like SotC in the GotD contest.

Have we ever seen a 1-seed benefit from a upset bandwagon though? Geralt has defeated a 16-seed, 9-seed, and 4-seed...and now he's facing a 3-seed.

I get the argument of winning multiple close matches in a row, I just don't know that we've seen it applied to a 1-seeder before and I don't know that anybody had more bracket-support in his eight-pack than him.

Anyway I'm pretty sure Kirby is the Samus this year and Bowser is the Mario based on recent rounds and contests. Crono should mash Bowser but I feel like Kirby would've given him a run. Real shame.

Er....Mario 2003 through Sephiroth is accurate but Crono is underrated in 2003 and both Cloud and Crono are underrated in 2002. I would adjust Cloud 2002 based on Cloud/Seph 2003. Crono 2002 is weaker than that since there were 24k less votes than in the Cloud match but is probably still over 40% on Link.

And yeah, I feel old being able to discuss 2002-6 in great detail while having no clue who won yesterday's matches.

HaRRicH posted...

Mac Arrowny posted...

I'd agree that Geralt's benefiting from a bandwagon effect, like SotC in the GotD contest.

Have we ever seen a 1-seed benefit from a upset bandwagon though? Geralt has defeated a 16-seed, 9-seed, and 4-seed...and now he's facing a 3-seed.

I get the argument of winning multiple close matches in a row, I just don't know that we've seen it applied to a 1-seeder before and I don't know that anybody had more bracket-support in his eight-pack than him.

I've talked to friends who were surprised how "weak" he was since they expected him to roll over random characters like Rosalina and Simon. I don't think anyone but people who follow the contests in a normal basis would be surprised by his run.

Division 3/4, Round 4

Pokemon Trainer Red vs. Alucard
Registered Vote Result:
Pokemon Trainer Red - 4293 (46.84%)
Alucard - 4873 (53.16%)

Anonymous Vote Result:
Pokemon Trainer Red - 4455 (44.98%)
Alucard - 5449 (55.02%)

Bowser vs. Kirby
Registered Vote Result:
Bowser - 4978 (54.30%)
Kirby - 4190 (45.70%)

Anonymous Vote Result:
Bowser - 5255 (53.04%)
Kirby - 4653 (46.96%)

Red did almost 2% better with the registered users. Not much of a surprise for Pokemon vs. non-Nintendo characters.

Bowser had the advantage with registered users, doing slightly over 1% better compared to the anonymous users.

Extra info and past results - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O1QuDMeK4VhHOia7bdBgtVp_F3kRTnGkkjtR0zRyudw/pub

Well I was right in expecting Kirby to be stronger with the anons but I'm surprised it wasn't by more.

We've seen SFF is also visible in off-site contests, such as the GameSpot contests from a few years ago. I archived all of the contest results here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vQ_o6O527nO6RXjnxfgNpGOamI-ixPxjL2Opon6lik0/pub

Their Mario/Samus match definitely showed signs of SFF, but the final result was a few points greater than how Mario/Samus would play out on this site.

Lopen posted...

creativename posted...

“So I mean to humor that, that requires a bigger shift in 2005 between the parts than the idea that 2005 Mario gets like 65% on 2004 Samus. You realize that right?”

What...?

Put it this way

Known values

Mario 2k5 = A bit over 43
Mario 2k4 = A bit over 37
Samus Raw in 2k5 = A bit over 34.
Samus Raw in 2k4 in a hypothetical match with Mario needed to get 60-40'd by 2k4 Mario = About 30

For 2k5 Mario to 65-35 2k4 Samus, Samus Raw vs Mario would need to be about 4 lower than it was in 2005

For 2k4 Samus to beat 2k4 Mario, Samus Raw vs Mario would need to be about 4 higher than it was in 2k5.

Basically what I'm saying is the assumption that 2k5 Mario 65-35s 2004 Samus is about the same number of stat fiddling as having Samus flip the script. Further I think because all the rest of Nintendo boosted in 2k5 and Samus outdid expectations vs Frog in 05, it makes more sense that Samus boosted in 2k5 than stayed static. Like Frog has always been a red flag in 2k5. Master Chief 2k5 60-40s 2k5 Frog, but Master Chief 2k5 is only 48-52 vs 2k4 Frog who = 2k4 Chief. Heavily implies Frog wasn't properly adjusted, which implies Samus wasn't. Especially since 2k4 Crono = 2k5 Crono.

Really the easy thing to is take 2k4 Mario value vs 2k5 Raw Samus which projects to Mario with 54-46 or so. Saying Samus wins in 04 is more of a leap than saying Mario 60-40s in 04, imo. You saying I lack credibility doesn't really change that.

This Samus boosted stuff is silly, I don’t really know why you’re so desperate to cling to it.

“Basically what I'm saying is the assumption that 2k5 Mario 65-35s 2004 Samus is about the same number of stat fiddling as having Samus flip the script.”

Not even close. I mean “stat fiddling” isn’t even required to flip the result, she was straight indirectly stronger than him in 2K4 to begin with. It’s very reasonable to think he could’ve rSFFed her, but then the most favorable to Mario result you could expect is 55%. To go from that to 65% is obviously a massive leap compared to putting him under 50%.

I already said in an earlier post how Frog’s performance the previous round and the next contest don’t really make Samus trouncing him seem odd at all. Everything went perfect for Frog in 2K4.

There is simply no way that a significantly weaker Mario 60/40’s her in 2K4. The Mario that got dispatched by Crono isn’t going to match the one that dispatched Crono.

I already said I could see Mario getting 54% on her in 2K4, but one shouldn’t be confident in that. We know basically nothing about potential rSFF, nor how going from being significantly weaker to stronger would affect the dynamics.

I didn’t say you lack credibility, I said your claims here lack credibility.

I don’t really see why you think 2K6 Samus was significantly stronger than 2K4 Samus. She’s at basically the same strength compared to Sonic and Mega Man both years. MM is projected at 41% on her in 2K4, 41.89% in 2K6. Sonic 42.48% in 2K4, 42.21% in 2K6.

red sox 777 posted...

And yeah, I feel old being able to discuss 2002-6 in great detail while having no clue who won yesterday's matches.

Yeah. It's good to see you back. I noticed you absence for most of this conference. (I was also around back in 2002, but I was only a lurker back then. I was young, and my mom was still really nervous about message boards/the internet in general.)

Great performance by Geralt

red sox 777 posted...

I think Samus probably boosted in 2005, with the rest of Nintendo. But probably not as much as Mario. RSFF has always made sense to me intuitively, and Mario > Samus may be the best evidence we're ever going to get of it.

I will point out that Lopen is the only one of us who got Mario/Samus anything close to right before the match. Lots of people picked Mario but mostly with stuff like 51%. Lopen called Mario with 60%, and he can correct me if I'm wrong but the only basis for that prediction would have been expecting major SFF, not expecting Mario to boost 16 points while Samus stayed still.

You can get a prediction right, despite having the wrong, or partially wrong rationale.

If his rationale excluded a big Mario boost, it was at least partially incorrect.

red sox 777 posted...

Er....Mario 2003 through Sephiroth is accurate but Crono is underrated in 2003 and both Cloud and Crono are underrated in 2002. I would adjust Cloud 2002 based on Cloud/Seph 2003. Crono 2002 is weaker than that since there were 24k less votes than in the Cloud match but is probably still over 40% on Link.

I wouldn’t adjust based on Cloud/Seph 2K3.

It makes perfect sense that Cloud and Squall benefitted significantly more from Kingdom Hearts than Sephiroth. Seph was just an optional boss fight in that game. They had more of a role.

Also it makes perfect sense that Seph was stronger than Cloud in 2K2. He seemed to be preferred by FF7 fans way back in the day. I find it pretty questionable (not impossible, just really doubtful) that Cloud would’ve done better on Link in 2K2 than Seph did.

LusterSoldier posted...

We've seen SFF is also visible in off-site contests, such as the GameSpot contests from a few years ago. I archived all of the contest results here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vQ_o6O527nO6RXjnxfgNpGOamI-ixPxjL2Opon6lik0/pub

Their Mario/Samus match definitely showed signs of SFF, but the final result was a few points greater than how Mario/Samus would play out on this site.

Gordon Freeman Always Wins

creativename posted...

I don’t really see why you think 2K6 Samus was significantly stronger than 2K4 Samus. She’s at basically the same strength compared to Sonic and Mega Man both years. MM is projected at 41% on her in 2K4, 41.89% in 2K6. Sonic 42.48% in 2K4, 42.21% in 2K6.

Only if Mega Man is unadjusted in 2k4. Do you think Mega Man didn't get SFFed by Link now? Cause 2k4 Mega Man adjusted is projected for 45.5-54.5 Samus

Panthera posted...

LusterSoldier posted...

We've seen SFF is also visible in off-site contests, such as the GameSpot contests from a few years ago. I archived all of the contest results here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vQ_o6O527nO6RXjnxfgNpGOamI-ixPxjL2Opon6lik0/pub

Their Mario/Samus match definitely showed signs of SFF, but the final result was a few points greater than how Mario/Samus would play out on this site.

Gordon Freeman Always Wins

@LusterSoldier

How would you know that’s SFF? Could just be their normal strengths over there. At any rate those contests seem to have way more shenanigans and cheating.

Lopen posted...

creativename posted...

I don’t really see why you think 2K6 Samus was significantly stronger than 2K4 Samus. She’s at basically the same strength compared to Sonic and Mega Man both years. MM is projected at 41% on her in 2K4, 41.89% in 2K6. Sonic 42.48% in 2K4, 42.21% in 2K6.

Only if Mega Man is unadjusted in 2k4. Do you think Mega Man didn't get SFFed by Link now? Cause 2k4 Mega Man adjusted is projected for 45.5-54.5 Samus

I don’t know about Link/MM. But she is projected to get lower on Sora and Auron in 2K6 than 2K4.

There’s no smoking gun, but this Samus boosted in 2K5 notion sure requires a ton of mental gymnastics.

Also keep in mind Sonic 2k6 beat Crono in a direct match when he'd get like 55-45d by 2004 stats

I mean you can not adjust Samus up between 04 and 06 but then you need to do all sorts of other moves to make it line up, basically everyone else has to drop cause Snake lost to her and Snake beat other guys who beat other guys.

Like ultimately it comes down to whoever made the stats thought

Samus (2006c) VS Samus (2004c)

Samus has a strength of 45.85.
Samus has a strength of 42.36.

Samus wins with 53.81% of the vote!
A win of 8,807 with 115,700 total votes cast.

Cause it made sense with how Snake handled things, and Samus handling him. You could leave Samus at the same and drop the entire field I suppose but it doesn't seem terribly logical to me, considering Nintendo as a whole boosted in 2005. Not sure why Samus would be the lone outlier there.

creativename posted...

How would you know that’s SFF? Could just be their normal strengths over there. At any rate those contests seem to have way more shenanigans and cheating.

Samus's earlier results prior to facing Mario suggest she's very strong over on GameSpot. Samus had over 80% on Jade and Frogger. After that, Samus struggled with a character called "Bub & Bob", but that match had a lot of vote stuffing and the admins over there had to remove votes from Bub & Bob. Then Samus puts up around 57% on Mega Man before getting her match against Mario.

Like I'm not the one doing gymnastics here. I'm just saying these things

- Nintendo as a whole boosted in 05 (except Samus who went down)
- Samus boosted in 06 while most of the rest of the Nintendo stayed relatively similar
- Samus vs Frog in 05 using Samus's estimated 05 stat probably puts Frog way lower than he should be considering 04 Frog, 05 Chief, and 04 vs 05 Crono

To me it feels like the gymnastics are in saying Samus didn't boost. You need to have her boost at a different time than the rest of Nintendo and deboost guys by swaths for Samus/Snake 06 to make sense.

LusterSoldier posted...

We've seen SFF is also visible in off-site contests, such as the GameSpot contests from a few years ago. I archived all of the contest results here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vQ_o6O527nO6RXjnxfgNpGOamI-ixPxjL2Opon6lik0/pub

Their Mario/Samus match definitely showed signs of SFF, but the final result was a few points greater than how Mario/Samus would play out on this site.

I remember Bub & Bob having a hilarious contest run that year. Any chance they could be higher than turbo fodder here?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/943-north-division-round-1-donkey-kong-vs-bub

That's not that bad.

We need to get Bub in here could be a bracket buster

GameSpot's site is so terrible that you can't even look up the results of the 3 contests on their site anymore. All of the pages related to their contests have been pulled from their site, which meant that I made a good decision by archiving their results when the contest pages still existed on their site. Although the Wayback Machine has probably captured those pages when they were still available on the site.

23 spot on the leaderboard
That's it I can retire

Nanis23 posted...

23 spot on the leaderboard
That's it I can retire

I must beat you. What are your picks today?

Moonroof posted...

Nanis23 posted...

23 spot on the leaderboard
That's it I can retire

I must beat you. What are your picks today?

Both correct

By the way moonroof if you can cause a Geralt rally that will overwhelm the site and push him to victory (man, even the the whole contest) you have my blessing

Lopen posted...

Like I'm not the one doing gymnastics here. I'm just saying these things

- Nintendo as a whole boosted in 05 (except Samus who went down)
- Samus boosted in 06 while most of the rest of the Nintendo stayed relatively similar
- Samus vs Frog in 05 using Samus's estimated 05 stat probably puts Frog way lower than he should be considering 04 Frog, 05 Chief, and 04 vs 05 Crono

To me it feels like the gymnastics are in saying Samus didn't boost. You need to have her boost at a different time than the rest of Nintendo and deboost guys by swaths for Samus/Snake 06 to make sense.

What about Sonic and Crono? Are you trying to say that Sonic *also* boosted? So basically the large majority of the bracket boosted...? And you try to claim I’m the one who’s really doing mental gymnastics.

2K4 was basically Peak Crono, unless it was 2015 when we didn’t see him.

Snake clearly boosted, you’ve really gone off the rails if you try and claim otherwise just so you can say it was instead Samus who boosted. This isn’t even in question. I don’t recall the reason, some trailer I think - was it Smash?

All your mental gymnastics are trying to get around the obvious - what everyone else has always thought, which is that Mario team boosted significantly and Samus didn’t. This was what people thought back then, and I’ve never seen any other idea suggested until now. You really have to dig deep, and then ignore lots of stuff on top of that, to try and claim Samus boosted in 2K5.

I don’t know who made those stats or what the adjustments were. I tend to take adjusted stats with a big grain of salt. I prefer to combine raw stats with caveats.

The Nintendo boost seemed to be a Mario boost mainly, and nobody said Samus went down.

I do not think Samus boosted in 2K6.

I have already said why there’s nothing odd about Frog vs. Samus if you look at the next contest and consider how 2K4 was a fairy tale year for Frog. He never looked like that again. Why are you taking his 2K4 run at face value and denying the entire rest of his career? There’s a load of selective facts you’re using here.

You seem to be being weirdly stubborn just to deny the obvious conclusion that has been consensus from the end of that contest, which is that Mario boosted significantly and Samus didn’t.

Lopen, I can see your points about Samus boosting in 2005.

Keep in mind the following... I don't see why Frog has to be underrated in 2005. If Samus x-stat is 45.85% in 2005 (her x-stat being 42.36% in 2004), then, then Ganondorf is at 37% on BL. In 2006 he's only 35% on BL. Also, MC was stronger the next year because of a new game, so basing Frog off of 2006 MC doesn't work. It's better to use 2003 Master Chief or 2005 Liquid Snake, and the average of the two suggests that measuring Frog from 2004 Samus is more legit.

Link only boosted slightly in 2005. Furthermore, Kirby's boost between 2003 and 2005 was mostly gained between 2003 and 2004, assuming Squall 2004 is measured from Squall 2005. Maybe Samus' boosting timeline was more like Kirby's.

Also note that 2007 Samus did equally as well on Cloud, or slightly worse (depends on how you calculate it) as she did in 2004. For Samus to rise after 2004 and then fall again in 2007 would be strange...

Zelda’s ability to so soundly beat her competition this year is super impressive. Her winning isn’t so much a surprise, but by how much she does it surely is. I think her performances have stood out the most because of that. Two FF characters back to back effortlessly.

Haste_2 posted...

Also note that 2007 Samus did equally as well on Cloud, or slightly worse (depends on how you calculate it) as she did in 2004. For Samus to rise after 2004 and then fall again in 2007 would be strange...

We have no accurate measurement of Cloud v Samus in 2007 because Mega Man and Link are in all her matches causing LFF or SFF

Haste_2 posted...

Keep in mind the following... I don't see why Frog has to be underrated in 2005. If Samus x-stat is 45.85% in 2005 (her x-stat being 42.36% in 2004), then, then Ganondorf is at 37% on BL. In 2006 he's only 35% on BL. Also, MC was stronger the next year because of a new game, so basing Frog off of 2006 MC doesn't work. It's better to use 2003 Master Chief or 2005 Liquid Snake, and the average of the two suggests that measuring Frog from 2004 Samus is more legit.

Why not just use 2005 Master Chief...? Keep in mind that 2004 Chief probably wasn't much weaker. The Halo 2 hype campaign was crazy, much like the Halo 3 hype campaign that made Chief stronger in 2007 before the game was even released mid contest. 2004 Chief in the middle of Halo 2 hype vs 2005 Chief or 2006 Chief way after Halo 2, probably not a big difference.

I mean I'm not saying Frog probably wasn't a bit weaker in 05, but there's a bit weaker and there's being 60-40'd by yourself a year ago. When it hits that level something is suspicious.

Also on Ganondorf many people have speculated he was on roids in 05 cause of the villain contest. Bowser would also support that. Both of them having a slight regression in 06 would make some sense.

creativename posted...

You seem to be being weirdly stubborn just to deny the obvious conclusion that has been consensus from the end of that contest, which is that Mario boosted significantly and Samus didn’t.

I take a consensus reached from people licking their wounds on miscalling a 60-40 and grasping at straws to make themselves feel better about getting a match that wasn't even close overwhelmingly incorrect with a lot of salt.

So this site just suddenly stopped caring about FFVIII?

Not necessarily (Squall could still be an upper midcarder) and probably not overnight at least. FF8 looked to have lost a step in 2015, and then there's my theory that Squall's 2013 results were deceptive, tricking people into thinking he hadn't decreased.

Here's my post in another topic about it:

MetalmindStats posted...

In retrospect, I actually think Squall had already weakened somewhat in 2013, and no one realized it because of the circumstances behind his matches.

Starting with his Round 1 match, Rayman was pretty much right on the fodder line back then if you consider Squall to still have been a near-elite, which seems suspiciously high for a character who had previously lost to Vyse in 2007. That's doubly the case when you consider that Commander Video was also in that match sucking up about seven percentage points, a majority of which likely would have gone to Rayman. I also highly doubt Rayman Origins was that big of a difference-maker for him, though it probably did at least boost him a bit.

In Round 2, Squall only did a few percentage points better against MissingNo. than Tidus had the previous round, which I think most people blamed on the joke being non-transitive and MissingNo. thus improving from Round 1. Furthermore, Squall fared better against Amaterasu than Luigi had back in 2010, even though she consistently improves every contest - which could be taken as validation for Squall's near-elite status at the time.

Given how lackluster Squall is now, and considering how similar characters such as Cloud and Vincent looked quite bad in 2013, I think it's just as likely that MissingNo. was largely transitive, as jokes without notable rallies generally appeared to be then. As for Amaterasu, I believe that she was Last Place Factor'd due to that bruising Squintendo, Bracket vs. Joke battle that took place between Squall and MissingNo.

Finally, in Round 3, Squall finished substantially behind Vivi, and got roughly 60-40d by Red in the process. All it would take for that to not be a near elite-level result by Squall is Vivi being roughly equivalent to where he looked this year, or perhaps even a bit stronger. Maybe that's a reach due to him dispatching Mario in those circumstances, but it's nonetheless possible. It's also worth noting that, given what we've seen of Red this year and back in 2010, Red would have needed a Fraudtwo-level boost in order to comfortably dispatch Squall and Vivi the way he did, assuming the former was still a near elite.

All that is why I think that Squall could have already seen much of his shocking decline from 2010 to 2013.

Freakin' Zelda's ability to hold a steady overnight % against FFVII makes X's collapse even more remarkable.

Zelda also doesn't have the issue of her series being an almost complete unknown over in Europe.

This rally topic is worth keeping an eye on:

https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/9y2mzj/vote_for_geralt_in_the_gamefaqs_character_contest/

It was posted shortly after 10:00 PM EST. Currently, it's the 5th most popular topic on the subreddit if you ignore the 2 sticky topics. Hard to tell if it's having any effect since this is also Geralt's best time period right now.

So Geralt didn't caught a rally. Too bad.

The best place on reddit to rally geralt would bring gamingcirclejerk

Auron wining his division ended up being the easiest points all contest so far

Still I would like Geralt to do it. Damn rallies!

Looking back at the Gamespot contests, and...

So when are we getting General RAAM in a contest?