Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1365

I think MGS4 fell a lot from its peak but I don't think MGS5 was ever all that strong.

Yeah, MGSV honestly looked about the same in GotD2 that it did in 2015.

Yeah if you hold Galaxy 2 constant between 2015 and 2020, MGSV actually went UP a tiny bit.

Favorite original Smash character poll today:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8343-

ya go my Kirby

It still makes me angry that Konami f***ed over Kojima like that. If it was completed as planned, it would have been hands DOWN the best game of the last generation. As it stands, it's still easily in the top 5

If you hold Mass Effect 2 and Mario Galaxy 2 constant from 2015 to 2020 and assume Majora's Mask's eightpack is VERY slightly overrated in the official 2015 x-stats, Bloodborne gets 57% on its 2015 self. So basically it got the same caliber boost as Dark Souls.

If there was any doubt that Kirby and Falcon gain all their strength from Smash.

BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

It still makes me angry that Konami f***ed over Kojima like that. If it was completed as planned, it would have been hands DOWN the best game of the last generation. As it stands, it's still easily in the top 5

I couldn't agree more.

https://pastebin.com/gMwzdkN8

Above is my contribution to the renewed 2015 CT/Ocarina debate from last page, additionally inspired by Ulti's PCA. I apologize if someone has already tried setting CT equal to Ocarina and following through from there before.

Some notes on the adjustments (or lack thereof) and games included (or excluded):

• The first list all the way down to Hearthstone has no adjustments at all beyond the assumption that CT was indirectly exactly on par with Ocarina in 2015. As such, take Divisions 6-8 with a grain of salt, especially LttP and MGS3's eightpacks.
• I technically could have included the back half of Division 1 and all of Division 2 in said list by using rallied Melee's value from its CT match, but I didn't feel Melee had sufficient transitivity to give those stats any credence.
• The second list represents my attempt to apply adjustments to broaden the frame of comparison between CT and Ocarina. I calculated rallied Melee from its CT match, as mentioned above, and then derived FFVII's value by assuming both games faced the same Melee. This puts FFVII almost exactly in between its bottom end, from its bonus match with Ocarina, and its top end, from its match with FFVI and CT's bonus match with FFVI.
• For FFVI, I instead opted for its bonus match percent on CT, as deriving its value from its match with FFVII would put it noticeably lower than its direct score on CT, implying that rSFF there is more likely than FFVII SFFing FFVI.
• That FFVI adjustment then gave me a metric by which to gauge SFF in OoT/LttP. I bumped Division 6 up by the same amount on the premise that the SFF would stack up comparably in those parallel matches, one which series PotD results relative to LFF also seem to support, for whatever that's worth.
• Unrallied Melee, and consequently the back half of Division 1, comes from Melee's registered voter percent against CT. As TRE pointed out, this might actually highball unrallied Melee, but it's the best guess we have at what a standard full match between the two games would have looked like.
• These adjusted stats likely overrate Majora's eightpack and certainly underrate GSC (+TWEWY). I found insufficient hard data to adjust either case further given how there was no clear starting point for Melee's rallies against GSC or gauge of what rallied voters and contest circumstances might have done to LttP/Majora.
• Neither list includes any games from Divisions 3 or 4 as a consequence of rallied Undertale's complete lack of transitivity leaving no easy metrics by which to measure those divisions relative to the rest of the field.

Also note that this is all a thought experiment stemming from a single assumption, one which may or may not be accurate. (I personally don't think it is, in fact.) I hope this nonetheless complements KP's adjusted stats as a means of gauging the realistic possibilities for how CT and Ocarina compare.

Yeah, that still makes almost everything in Chrono Trigger's half look too weak me. There are even several matchups we had seen direct before that straight up flip in these stats. One thing is how Chrono Trigger vs. Ocarina of Time would go in a 1v1 match because the strongest Zelda entry can push itself some if needs to, but indirectly Chrono Trigger was clearly stronger. Ocarina of Time might very well simply have enough people voting against it with its always wins syndrome and that's why iy was clearly a step below, but it definitely was.

MetalmindStats posted...

implying that rSFF there is more likely than FFVII SFFing FFVI

This I do agree is more likely though. I think it's also why Wind Waker looks better than it should. A combination of perhaps mroe bracket votes than it should have (as FFVI was the #1 seed), the PotD showoff between the two fueling the upset and FFVII being an easy target for being too popular within the fanbase (and you know, every irregular user coming here then still claiming FF always wins despite it not having won anything for a decade but getting further and further from it). At least it should be a fair match, I find it very hard to believe FFVII SFFd FFVI there.

ctesjbuvf posted...

If there was any doubt that Kirby and Falcon gain all their strength from Smash.

Or why Samus is potentially our #2 despite a dormant series!

interesting notes about this poll compared to the one from 2018

Kirby has gone up over a full percent from last time, which is the biggest shift of anyone. Pikachu passed Captain Falcon for 4th place this time.

and Link's percentage went up because of course it did

I hope SBAllen isn't afraid to just ban Link from the next character contest. It's safe to say that Link has entered "not just the best but the best by a wide margin" territory.

didn't Link underperform Vs. Cloud last time they faced?

Cloud has Smash and FFVII Remake and maybe another FFVII remake will release before next CB...I would have been OK banning Link years ago when it seemed FFVII was dead but now it's a different story.

If we were getting a character battle every year I would be for it, but if we are getting one every 5 years then I don't mind Link staying.

abdou posted...

didn't Link underperform Vs. Cloud last time they faced?

if by "underperform" Cloud did a little better than the first time then yes

but that was basically going from "just under 40%" to "just over 40%" and Cloud isn't bridging that gap with Remake alone (or probably much of anything)

charmander6000 posted...

If we were getting a character battle every year I would be for it, but if we are getting one every 5 years then I don't mind Link staying.

Yeah, I sorta get this mindset. I don't necessarily want Link removed for good, but at least take him out of the main bracket. You can have a Tournament of Champions or something, or maybe just relegate him to a bonus match. But there's not much point to him being in the main competition if it's a 1-on-1 bracket.

Link should be the final bonus match and that's it. There's no justification for having him trivialize any number of matches more than that, and there hasn't been since 2006. The only thing that beats Link anymore is a rally.

KamikazePotato posted...

Link should be the final bonus match and that's it. There's no justification for having him trivialize any number of matches more than that, and there hasn't been since 2006. The only thing that beats Link anymore is a rally.

Eh, I was fine with him being in 4-ways since it was a new format. Even 2010 was fine, and we got a good match out of him in 2013.

Keeping him out of the main bracket in 2018 was the right move though. Nothing was touching him that year.

The 2013 finals was also supposed to be a match rigged against Link where he needed to beat Snake while under LFF.

Leonhart4 posted...

Or why Samus is potentially our #2 despite a dormant series!

Hard to make much of, Mario usually finishes below Yoshi in his own series polls and presence in Smash matters. In any case, he definitely has more people holding him down there. I do believe that the first Mario vs. Samus match in 2018 was pretty accurate and that everyone just really wanted to see the upset in the rematch. Tifa vs. Seph was the biggest abnormality!

Team Rocket Elite posted...

The 2013 finals was also supposed to be a match rigged against Link where he needed to beat Snake while under LFF.

The only good possible outcome of a the worst format and we didn't get it.

Samus was notorious for getting crushed under the weight of SFF and LFF for a long time, and she's holding up pretty well here.

Also, Tifa/Seph lines up pretty well if Mario/Samus is legit...!

The one result that just doesn't make any sense compared to all the others is Snake/Samus.

Maybe Snake collapses against Samus, just like Ryu Hayabusa does so to Snake? We saw the same thing back in 2006.

But he also beat the stuffing out of her in 2013. I don't know that 2006 was SFF as much as Samus's last two matches in the female bracket being underperformances causing people to underrate her relative to Snake.

We probably could've solved the mystery if Mario doesn't cheat to win again!

Poll updates and trend charts for the poll from 3 days ago:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JSmVbKoUwNzqlgGCLq2hGfo0xWhVz813h45-w5g4NSI/pub?gid=305399188

This poll is a good example of how a pandemic has affected poll results, and even the trends as well.

In terms of historical trends for this poll, "None" has the most pronounced trends with a strong early vote and maintaining that strong early vote throughout the entire night vote and a brief portion of the early morning vote. It immediately collapses after the first 7-8 hours of the poll. The options "Five to ten", "More than 10", and "More than 100" all start off the poll very terribly, but improve themselves after the Power Hour ends with their best time period being the morning vote, then they all drop off hard again with their SNV being similar to the Power Hour.

The ongoing pandemic has clearly affected the trends very significantly here. This is most clearly visible with the trends for "None", which show a less extreme drop off in its trends from the Power Hour. It still performs best during the board vote and Power Hour, but it performed way better during the morning vote and day vote compared to the 2019 poll. In the most recent version of this poll, "None" lost a total of just 1.77% from 6:00 AM to the end of the poll. For reference, "None" lost a total of 4.90% after 6:00 AM in the 2019 poll. In 2018, it was 3.29% and the 2016 poll was 4.55%. So the trends were far weaker as a result of the pandemic, but this can be blamed on the options that were hurt the most by a pandemic (more on that later). What little trends "None" actually had in this poll were the caused by the options "One" and "Two to four" chipping away at None's strong early vote.

"One" is the only major option whose trends were mostly unaffected by the pandemic, as they are very similar to past versions of this poll. "One" still has a bad board vote and Power Hour, and continues performing terribly during the night vote and morning vote. It begins to perform better during the day vote, while the SNV is still its best time period just like in the previous versions of this poll.

"Two to four" also has very similar trends to the past versions of this poll, with the board vote and Power Hour being terrible and the night vote being only slightly better. The late morning vote and day vote is the best time period here, while the SNV is only slightly below average.

The options most heavily affected by the pandemic are "Five to ten", "More than 10", and "More than 100". Those 3 options were the main reason why "None" experiences a very noticeable drop off after its very strong first 7-8 hours of the poll. In the 2019 poll, the last 4 options (including the "outside" option) had 5 consecutive hours where they combined for 10% of the vote and 6 hours overall with the single best hour maxing out at 13.13%. But in the 2021 poll, the last 4 options never combined for more than 5% of the vote in any single hour (4.82% was the high point). These options simply didn't show up at all in the 2021 poll, so they really didn't have any trends to speak of.

As for the results of the poll, the pandemic has affected the results by causing "None" to perform almost 3% better compared to the 2019 poll. "One" has also done better during the pandemic, with an improvement of about 1.5% from 2019. "Two to four" has performed only slightly worse (5.71% to 5.45%). "Five to ten" has dropped from 1.54% to 0.81%. The most severe drop off came from "More than 10", which fell from 3.38% to 0.70%. "More than 100" fell from 1.13% to 0.53%. "I'm outside right now" has held steady with an identical 1.01% in both 2019 and 2021.

KamikazePotato posted...

Link should be the final bonus match and that's it. There's no justification for having him trivialize any number of matches more than that, and there hasn't been since 2006. The only thing that beats Link anymore is a rally.

Link vs. Link mini bracket + Link's multiple incarnations vs. the Division winners should be the way to go!

Actually, let's rank Links!

Classic Link (Zelda I & II)
CD-I Link
Young Link*
Adult Link*
LA Link
Toon Link
TP Link
BotW Link

*I'm separating OoT Link a la Melee so he doesn't get uber-broken.

Leonhart4 posted...

But he also beat the stuffing out of her in 2013. I don't know that 2006 was SFF as much as Samus's last two matches in the female bracket being underperformances causing people to underrate her relative to Snake.

We probably could've solved the mystery if Mario doesn't cheat to win again!

If only there was a phrase for characters who overperformed in 2013 and then fell on their faces in 2018.

A phrase you coined...

Maybe Snake is a fraud?

I don't think 2013 Snake was a fraud! He was a beast that entire contest, and it was in line with previous contests, which was the biggest indicator that what Mewtwo did in 2013 was an anomaly. He had never looked anywhere near that good before, and he didn't have a good reason to boost that much. He could've overperformed in the final because people saw him as a better chance to beat Draven than Samus, for whatever the reason.

Snake 2018 has a lot of reasons to be worse than Snake 2013. Metal Gear's time in the sun is long past.

Well, everything we saw from Snake and Zelda indicates that the result was legit there, which would theoretically put him on the same level as Mario, Cloud, and Samus.

So the only other possibility is that Zelda rSFF'd Mario, which doesn't feel all that likely to me.

I fully believe that Zelda got stronger upon beating Snake. From that point she was on a bandwagon, of course it peaked against Link, but still.

Leonhart4 posted...

Well, everything we saw from Snake and Zelda indicates that the result was legit there, which would theoretically put him on the same level as Mario, Cloud, and Samus.

So the only other possibility is that Zelda rSFF'd Mario, which doesn't feel all that likely to me.

Or Mario rSFFed Samus and she's in that...10% gap between Cloud and Link!

(The real answer is just Samus is way higher on the Smash totem pole than Snake is and 3-ways are very unreliable)

ctesjbuvf posted...

I fully believe that Zelda got stronger upon beating Snake. From that point she was on a bandwagon, of course it peaked against Link, but still.

I mean, she did worse against Sonic than Snake did after this!

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Or Mario rSFFed Samus she's in that...10% gap between Cloud and Link!

I've been saying for a while that this is the most likely explanation, but people seem reluctant to accept it!

I feel like at this point Samus is clearly the #2 character on this site before rSFF gets involved. The question is if Remake and Sephiroth in Smash will help Cloud enough to bridge the gap.

(Trick question, it won't matter because in that situation Cloud will lose his Smash support to Samus and get safely beaten just like Snake does whenever he runs into her 1v1)

There's also the chance we see playable Zelda in BotW2 and she gets another boost before the next Character Battle.

Zelda better not get another boost, or we'll be going 'oh man this was an impressive performance by Cloud to avoid the doubling from Link'.

By main fear of having Link removed is that Zelda just becomes as strong as she needs to be to win now that it's within reach.

I still have no clue how Samus gets THIS MUCH STRENGTH from Smash, while other characters.... don’t.

And don’t tell me it’s all from Metroid games.

No way Cloud loses to Samus. At least not 1v1.

If Zelda was playable in BotW2, though... we might as well give her Link's spot in the N9.

UltimaterializerX posted...

I still have no clue how Samus gets THIS MUCH STRENGTH from Smash, while other characters.... don’t.

And don’t tell me it’s all from Metroid games.

Imagine how weak Kirby would be without Smash

It’s possible BOTW2 won’t do much for her. She’s been playable in Smash for 19 years.

Yeah, I don't know that I'd expect another mega boost from Zelda. Kingdom Hearts only worked for the FF characters the first time, although the sequels certainly helped keep them relevant.

UltimaterializerX posted...

I still have no clue how Samus gets THIS MUCH STRENGTH from Smash, while other characters.... don’t.

And don’t tell me it’s all from Metroid games.

I think her design really helps too, as does being one of the core eight. Combine that Super Metroid still being a far more popular game than other Smash wonders like Kirby and Falcon and the whole NES Metroid spoiler, and it's the perfect storm for GameFAQs popularity.

I wouldn't expect a mega boost for Zelda but she was already 48.94% on Cloud last contest. Even a small boost may be enough to take the #2 spot.

Team Rocket Elite posted...

I wouldn't expect a mega boost for Zelda but she was already 48.94% on Cloud last contest. Even a small boost may be enough to take the #2 spot.

The big upside of BOTW2 would be maintaining Zelda's current position, more than anything else. If there wasn't another Zelda game coming to Switch, I'd be considering banking on her coming down to Earth just a bit.

ctesjbuvf posted...

I fully believe that Zelda got stronger upon beating Snake. From that point she was on a bandwagon, of course it peaked against Link, but still.

After she beat Sonic, in any case.

I find it a little strange Snake did better against Sonic in 2018 than in 2006 even though in the latter case he was coming off of the MGS4/SSBB announcements vs. having his series all but dead in 2018 while Sonic was fresh off of Mania. I guess those ensuing 12 years really weren't kind to Sonic, which makes loads of sense.

But then how are some characters affected by droughts of games (or loads of bad games) more than others? Sonic suffers under the weight of so many bad games, so do the Resident Evil characters, and Gordon Freeman reverts back to fodder after Half-Life 3 gets postponed indefinitely plus Metal Gear characters dropping after their franchise is killed, but then Crono is still good with only a single game appearance to his name and Samus is top tier despite her series being effectively dormant in the 2010s.

LinkMarioSamus posted...

But then how are some characters affected by droughts of games (or loads of bad games) more than others? Sonic suffers under the weight of so many bad games, so do the Resident Evil characters, and Gordon Freeman reverts back to fodder after Half-Life 3 gets postponed indefinitely plus Metal Gear characters dropping after their franchise is killed, but then Crono is still good with only a single game appearance to his name and Samus is top tier despite her series being effectively dormant in the 2010s.

I think it really depends on the character we're talking about.

For example, Crono remaining solid makes sense considering his game hasn't been forgotten; on the contrary, it's stronger than ever. If it received a really bad sequel, though, he could be highly susceptible to some damage, as with pretty much every character (except Sonic, for some reason).

Also, female characters in general (especially attractive ones) have become stronger or more popular lately. You can see it with Samus, Tifa, 2B, etc (can't wait to see Shanoa in action!).

Sonic is probably weaker than he's ever been!