Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1327

plasmabeam posted...

Smash should win that 60-40. I can't see the best-selling game in the Smash franchise losing to a handheld game. Also, new Smash DLC could drop any week now.

It's tricky because Odyssey got overshadowed in 2017 by BotW in the GotY poll. Not a bad upset pick, especially when you think about Mario > Smash in the Series contest. If you believe voters prefer Mario to Smash, go for it.

Personally I picked Ultimate > Odyssey without a second thought. Now I'm wondering.

Mario beats Smash on the strength of the older games. Anything past Mario 64 isn't beating the strongest Smash game.

Leonhart4 posted...

I'm just glad they contributed to keeping Cecil winless...!

😡

Leonhart4 posted...

Mario beats Smash on the strength of the older games. Anything past Mario 64 isn't beating the strongest Smash game.

We're not asking if Mario Odyssey beats Melee. We're asking if it beats Ultimate.

Mario Galaxy and Smash 4 were pretty close in strength in 2015. Guess it depends on whether you think Odyssey or Ultimate improved in strength more over those two games.

AxemRedRanger posted...

Mario Galaxy and Smash 4 were pretty close in strength in 2015. Guess it depends on whether you think Odyssey or Ultimate improved in strength more over those two games.

Odyssey > Galaxy
Ultimate > Sm4sh

Definitely. Additionally, in the same level of comparison (game from ~10 years ago being surpassed in strength now):

P5 > P4
GTAV > GTA: SA
BotW > TP

swirIdude posted...

We're not asking if Mario Odyssey beats Melee. We're asking if it beats Ultimate.

Ultimate would beat Melee.

Leonhart4 posted...

Ultimate would beat Melee.

Not on 2020 Active-Passive Citizenship GameFAQs it wouldn’t.

Trollblade74 posted...

Not on 2020 Active-Passive Citizenship GameFAQs it wouldn’t.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7577

good enough for me

it might not even be the stronger game in general but I think ultimate’s got the clear leg up 1-on-1

Trollblade74 posted...

Not on 2020 Active-Passive Citizenship GameFAQs it wouldn’t.

It already won pretty convincingly in a Favorite Smash game poll

The level of strength that a handful of games from this decade have is crazy. Like, I'd like to see FFVII vs. Smash Ultimate in a modern scenario. It would be nuts.

(This is for the people that claim GameFAQs doesn't play new games, or that newer games are weaker by default.)

AxemRedRanger posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7577

Leonhart4 posted...

It already won pretty convincingly in a Favorite Smash game poll

I don't even trust that poll because it was worded as "best all-time", not "favorite". There's a difference between "best game" and "favorite game" on how voters interpret this. I have talked about the difference between "best game" and "favorite game" in the past, most notably when we had 2D and 3D Mario polls as those are the only 2 polls we've had using both the "best game" and "favorite game" wording in the poll question. So we got 2 sets of data points to compare the effect of the "best game" to "favorite game" in the poll question wording.

The thing about the series battle is that people were complaining that Smash Bros. was even there because it only had two games at the time, same with Halo. That definitely contributed to its loss to Super Mario.

Advokaiser posted...

The level of strength that a handful of games from this decade have is crazy. Like, I'd like to see FFVII vs. Smash Ultimate in a modern scenario. It would be nuts.

(This is for the people that claim GameFAQs doesn't play new games, or that newer games are weaker by default.)

I have always rejected the claim that GameFAQs doesn’t play new games, you just need to look at new game purchase and console ownership polls for that. They do however take their time getting to many new games, especially new IPs.

Incidentally I think 2019 games may suffer because of this. 2009 games looked pretty bad last GotD. Fortunately only RE2 and Three Houses are likely to do anything.

LusterSoldier posted...

I don't even trust that poll because it was worded as "best all-time", not "favorite". There's a difference between "best game" and "favorite game" on how voters interpret this. I have talked about the difference between "best game" and "favorite game" in the past, most notably when we had 2D and 3D Mario polls as those are the only 2 polls we've had using both the "best game" and "favorite game" wording in the poll question. So we got 2 sets of data points to compare the effect of the "best game" to "favorite game" in the poll question wording.

Well, in terms of contest stats, wouldn't "best game" be the trusty result?

Lightning Strikes posted...

I have always rejected the claim that GameFAQs doesn’t play new games, you just need to look at new game purchase and console ownership polls for that. They do however take their time getting to many new games, especially new IPs.

Incidentally I think 2019 games may suffer because of this. 2009 games looked pretty bad last GotD. Fortunately only RE2 and Three Houses are likely to do anything.

Well, 2009 was a pretty weak year in general in terms of strength. The only games I can think of from that year that have endured the test of time are Dragon Age: Origins, Uncharted 2 and Assassin's Creed II (especially the last two, which are the ones that have gotten stronger over time).

is Persona 4 Golden gonna beat GTAV? Leaning P4G right now

Advokaiser posted...

Uncharted 2 and Assassin's Creed II

Both of these looked pretty terrible in 2015, just saying...!

Batman: Arkham Asylum is probably the closest thing to a 2009 game that has endured the test of time on GameFAQs.

^I actually omitted Arkham Asylum on purpose, just because everyone's focus is now on Arkham City (but oddly not on the others, huh…).

I feel like Overwatch might have been stronger two years ago, but today it's just trash. :/

I think AC2 bombed because the series in general has flatlined. UC2 did mostly fine.

Oh hey, Advokaiser. Nice to see you around before the contest starts and a lot of people have to remove you from their signatures.

(...Man, I phrased that WAY ruder than I wanted it to sound.)

Anyways, how did you enjoy being the patron saint of the board for a year and change?

Trollblade74 posted...

Oh hey, Advokaiser. Nice to see you around before the contest starts and a lot of people have to remove you from their signatures.

(...Man, I phrased that WAY ruder than I wanted it to sound.)

xD No problem, I understood what you meant. It actually sounded really funny to me when you pointed it out.

Anyways, did you enjoy being the talk of the board for a year and change?

Absolutely. It's more the initial shock sensation of "...did I really win?" more than anything, and I certainly would've loved to be more involved with the board last year to give it a greater impact (not in the way of boasting it, but rather like "hey, this is the guy that won the Guru and we're getting to know him better". After all, I love this board, though I haven't been too motivated myself to participate in other topics in the meantime). But hey, it was cool while it lasted!

Team Rocket Elite posted...

I feel like GameFAQs is pretty good at pretending that things never change ever and that's how I'm designing my entry. Like you would think GTA5 selling something like 50 million (more) copies since 2015 would help but lots of people here are going have it lose to P4G like a chump anyways. While it wouldn't be surprising if Witcher 3 really is a lot stronger now, I would be equally unsurprized if GameFAQs just ignored the rest of the world and decided Witcher 3 hasn't budged an inch.

I'll see how well my courage holds up over the next few days. I might bail if it turns out the rest of my bracket isn't as cookie as I think it is.

What do you mean by this?

Do you meant that users are predicting things never change in their brackets, but are wrong and that things have changed?

Or that the voters ignore outside world changes and so that how you should predict things?

I see my poll code has a 7:00PM start time. Were the polls not at midnight last contest?

What will be the start times for this contest? Does anyone know?

I'm not as confident in that statement as I was when I made it. My thinking was that a lot of games really didn't change by much going from GotD1 to Best Game Ever 2015. I was banking on that also being true going from Best Game Ever 2015 to now. So my thinking was GTA5 is going to be as strong now as it was when it faced SMRPG 5 years ago despite GTA5 apparently doubling its sales since then. Similarly Witcher 3 might not be much stronger now compared to back then despite all the extra sales.

But, I've since gone back to look at how much things changed between 2010 and 2015 and it's not really as static as I had hoped. While many games seemed to be about the same strength as before, some games really did change by a lot. If any game was going to grow from 2015 to now, Witcher 3 seems like it would be that game. I might still gamble and predict that Witcher 3 is being overrated but it's very much a gamble I'm not confident in.

Advokaiser posted...

Well, in terms of contest stats, wouldn't "best game" be the trusty result?

No, "favorite game" would be more reflective of game strength in a contest setting.

When you ask for "best game", it gets people to take off their nostalgia glasses and take a more objective look at all of the games in the poll before making their vote. With "favorite game", people don't put as much thought into their game and nostalgia is a bigger factor in their vote. Mario World and Mario 64 both did better in the "favorite game" polls than when it was "best game". Mario 3 and Galaxy 1 were 2 games that did better in the poll that was worded as "best game" compared to "favorite game".

@creativename

creativename posted...

I see my poll code has a 7:00PM start time. Were the polls not at midnight last contest?

What will be the start times for this contest? Does anyone know?

Yeah, they weren't at midnight last contest. In the last contest, the polls started at 8:00 PM EST before shifting to 7:00 PM EST after the November DST switch. All of the polls will start at 8:00 PM EST for this contest.

Due to the contest being delayed to March 19th (for the first day of matches), that means the first poll ID for this contest has been pushed back as well. Here's all of the relevant poll ID milestones you need to know for your match updater:

7908 - First Poll ID of contest, 4 matches per day
8004 - Start of 2 matches per day
8019 - Last Poll ID before the 6 day break begins
8020 - Contest resumes again with 2 matches per day
8032 - Start of 1 match per day
8034 - Final Poll ID of contest

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Is Ultimate really that much stronger than Odyssey or do you people think it has a chance?

It's a lot more likely to be rallied (M2K and ZeRo have accounts on this website and M2K at least has sent rally tweets for Smash in the past), but I think Odyssey is the safe bet. Smash hasn't been particularly impressive on here outside of rallies.

snake_5036 posted...

It's a lot more likely to be rallied (M2K and ZeRo have accounts on this website and M2K at least has sent rally tweets for Smash in the past), but I think Odyssey is the safe bet. Smash hasn't been particularly impressive on here outside of rallies.

Okay, but what Mario game this millennium has ever done anything at all on GameFAQs? Even the two Galaxies have more than their fair share of subpar results, and on top of that, Odyssey didn't look to have helped Mario whatsoever in 2018.

It's hard to say if it helped Mario or not. In 2013 Mario did this:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5246-character-battle-ix-division-8-round-2-mario-vs-vivi-vs

That could be Mario being bad but it could also be 2013 being 2013.

(Darn Draven spillover...)

In other news, Waluigi is close to doubling Peach, Toad, and Wario.

Advokaiser posted...

(Darn Draven spillover...)

Wasn't Draven spill, that was Redditors voting exclusively Draven. This was almost entirely 4chan messing with the contest for Vivi's sake (though only as far as crushing a leeched Mario, didn't do a thing for when he was leeched by Squall). You want Reddit spillover, that'd be PokeFEAR crushing Cloud.

Also, I noticed that the 2013 template on the Wiki lists "Red > Squall > Vivi" when Vivi finished ahead of Squall. I want to fix it, but Ulti put a lifetime ban on me for yelling about his Blizzard diatribes.

snake_5036 posted...

It's a lot more likely to be rallied (M2K and ZeRo have accounts on this website and M2K at least has sent rally tweets for Smash in the past), but I think Odyssey is the safe bet. Smash hasn't been particularly impressive on here outside of rallies.

Uh, Smash has been impressive in almost every contest it's ever been in unless you think not winning the contest isn't impressive.

The main Waluigi reddit rally thread had ~656 points as of the poll closing. Should have had some additional people getting linked by that and voting Waluigi without upvoting it but then a few people linked by it also would have voted a non-Waluigi option so they might cancel each other out.

Well, it definitely mattered since Waluigi overtook Bowser over the course of that topic.

AxemRedRanger posted...

The main Waluigi reddit rally thread had ~656 points as of the poll closing. Should have had some additional people getting linked by that and voting Waluigi without upvoting it but then a few people linked by it also would have voted a non-Waluigi option so they might cancel each other out.

The poll is still running right now. It started at 1:00 AM because of the DST switch. Moving the poll start time back to 12:00 AM requires Allen (or another admin) to make a manual adjustment to the start time every single time we have a DST switch to keep the start time at 12:00 AM all year round. The next poll will start in less than 15 minutes from now.

UberPyro64 posted...

Division 4 is annoying. Between GTAV, RDR, P4G, Xenoblade, and FE:TH.

Not sure who the overall winner for that division would be.

Really? Seems like GTAV > RDR > Overwatch > Fire Emblem > everything else is the obvious choice

Likewise, anyone taking Odyssey over Smash is on drugs. Smash is more likely to beat BotW than Odyssey is to beat Smash

Overwatch > Fire Emblem doesn’t seem obvious at all to me. I don’t think it’s even getting past Xenoblade.

We saw Overwatch in its prime and it was meh at best. It beating Xenoblade now would be the shock of the contest.

I have kingdom hearts winning its division. I am bit sure if I am a genius or crazy

Crazy. Persona 5 is the most obvious division winner other than BOTW.

Really?
I have Sonic Mania upsetting Persona V because it's Sonic. I thought the hardest decision of that bracket was deciding between Sonic and RDR2.

Sonic 2 is probably good enough to be worth considering if it was there but the match would be debatable and unless you think Sonic Mania is almost as strong as that game I wouldn’t pick it.

I'd say The Witcher III is the 2nd most obvious division winner. The only challenge it has is God of War, but I doubt Kratos can finish the job.

Is there a Guru competition this time?

Big Bob posted...

I'd say The Witcher III is the 2nd most obvious division winner. The only challenge it has is God of War, but I doubt Kratos can finish the job.

God of War has a real chance of winning that.

Safer_777 posted...

Is there a Guru competition this time?

Always

Hmmm...

So Death Stranding > Overwatch isn't the obvious R1 pick?

Time to catch up on prediction topics...

Trend charts for the favorite Mario character poll:





Because of the 1:00 AM start and end time for this poll which would affect the FNV and SNV, I handled this by having one less hour for the FNV but giving the SNV one extra hour instead.

Waluigi won 3 consecutive hours over Yoshi thanks to the rally, and managed to tie Yoshi in a different hour as well. The rally was most powerful from 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM, after which the rally dropped off in strength somewhat. Even Waluigi's SNV strength was more than double his pre-rally strength, showing that the rally persisted for the rest of the poll after the rally started.

The rally topic was posted at 11:46 AM. Waluigi was in last place at the time. 11:55 AM is when Toad maxed out at a 59 vote lead over Waluigi. It took exactly one hour to get our first lead change, with Waluigi taking the lead over Toad at 12:55 PM followed by another lead change over Wario at 1:00 PM and Princess Peach at 1:05 PM. That's 3 lead changes in 3 consecutive updates, each affecting 3 different characters. The lead change over Bowser would take a bit longer to happen, and it finally happened at 4:10 PM.

Waluigi's percentage was at 5.85% at 11:55 AM, after which the first signs of the rally start to kick in (percentage increases). Waluigi was gaining percentage for the rest of the poll after the rally kicked in, finishing the poll with 11.85%. Thanks to the rally, Waluigi more than doubled his percentage from his pre-rally number. The rally originated from the Waluigi subreddit and proved to be a major success relative to the size of the subreddit (38465 subscribers right now). The rally topic had 781 points with a 100% upvote rate, although it's possible to get like 1 or 2 downvotes while still technically having an upvote rate of 99.5% or better (which would round up to 100%). The 781 total points on the rally was somewhat close to the estimated number of rallied votes (see below), although the potential exists for people to upvote the rally while not actually voting in the poll.

Estimating the number of rallied votes was pretty easy. I used Waluigi's pre-rally percentage as a basis to determine how many votes I would have to subtract from the final vote total for Waluigi's percentage to be equal to his pre-rally percentage. This comes out to about 750 rallied votes, or about 5 rallied votes on average for each individual 5 minute update that happened after the start of the rally. Even without the rally, this poll would have still managed to break 11000 votes on its own (although just barely).