Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1369

It's a real pain in the ass, when you're looking for help, trying to scrub a video for the one part in a long multi-part Let's Play series that you're looking for. I suppose creators could add bookmarks or whatever but I don't think anyone really does that?

Someone should add the ability in GameFAQs to deep link directly to specific areas in videos that address what people are searching for (boss battles, tough sections, etc.). Like, boom, here's a list of a dozen different videos showing beating Margit the Fell, starting right at the beginning of the fight.

Gamefaqs is mostly used for older games and Q&As yeah.

I don't get why we never got video guides here tbh

ctesjbuvf posted...

Gamefaqs is mostly used for older games and Q&As yeah.

I don't get why we never got video guides here tbh

We do have video guides. They are, predictably, garbage.

wait didn't we have wikis here on gamefaqs? I remember them but never used it

We tried Wikis for a bit a long time ago but it never took off. Fandom is trash so it might be an opportunity to try again.

The B8 wiki gets good traffic

UltimaterializerX posted...

The B8 wiki gets good traffic

Relative to what

UltimaterializerX posted...

We do have video guides. They are, predictably, garbage.

Seems like something we should have done more for then.

This poll already happened 2 days ago, but I was surprised at how low the vote totals were:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8844-

I thought the low total was due to the poll either starting late due to a glitch or extended website downtime, but the poll graphs showed neither one of those was the cause of the low total. I guess the site isn't as hyped for this new "E3 replacement", or that a lot of the site didn't know about this E3 replacement show yet.

As for yesterday's poll, I'm still not quite into the 20+ year group just yet. I first joined in 2003, so I got a little bit less than a year left before I've been here for 20+ years.

The people on this site are too old to get hyped for game shows anymore. We see through the smoke and mirrors and don't bother judging a game until it's actually out.

Big Bob posted...

The people on this site are too old to get hyped for game shows anymore. We see through the smoke and mirrors and don't bother judging a game until it's actually out.

It took me a minute to realize you weren’t talking about stuff like Family Feud.

"We asked 100 GameFAQs users..."

LusterSoldier posted...

I thought the low total was due to the poll either starting late due to a glitch or extended website downtime, but the poll graphs showed neither one of those was the cause of the low total. I guess the site isn't as hyped for this new "E3 replacement", or that a lot of the site didn't know about this E3 replacement show yet.

The options are weak this year. No Nintendo/Sony/Squenix/Capcom/etc.

Capcom does have an event for June 13 but wasn't announced in time for the poll.

I remember when we used to laugh at Max Payne/Dirk the Daring's pathetic vote totals and now I'd be elated if we could reach those numbers again.

How well would Reassurance Bucket from The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe do in a character contest?:
https://thestanleyparable.fandom.com/wiki/The_Stanley_Parable_Reassurance_Bucket

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7951-division-5-round-1-fallout-new-vegas-vs-the-stanley-parable

Probably not good

Characters =/= games

But you should try to nominate the main character Stanley

I think the bucket would defeat Stanley, it has Weighted Companion Cube vibes. Obviously The Stanley Parable would get crushed by Portal so regardless it'll be weak, but the joke factor is still there.

LeonhartFour posted...

I remember when we used to laugh at Max Payne/Dirk the Daring's pathetic vote totals and now I'd be elated if we could reach those numbers again.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/959-south-division-round-1-max-payne-vs-dirk-the-daring

'02 Max Payne alone outscored the GotD2 Finale. Ouch.

no wonder SBAllen delaying the next contest. way too few people participating, it's just not worth the effort anymore.

The PR management usually also sucks though, with all due respect.

abdou posted...

no wonder SBAllen delaying the next contest. way too few people participating, it's just not worth the effort anymore.

This is what the anti rally gang wanted. It’s no accident vote totals died once all the checks to it were put in after 2015.

UltimaterializerX posted...

This is what the anti rally gang wanted. It’s no accident vote totals died once all the checks to it were put in after 2015.

Nope and nope, vote totals were dying well before those measures were put in place.

Artificial rallies weren't going to salvage that considering you can't even get those same places to care anymore and 99.9% of them don't stick around

"You have to vote in every poll" killed these things and it's not even a debate my dude. It went from a slow decline to an ocean cliff overnight.

I don't like the having to vote in every match rule, but it was definitely off a cliff before that.

UltimaterializerX posted...

"You have to vote in every poll" killed these things and it's not even a debate my dude. It went from a slow decline to an ocean cliff overnight.

Nah, we were already on that trajectory. You can act like rallies would have saved the site or the contests all you want, but most people don't care about this site anymore and that's all there is to it.

UltimaterializerX posted...

"You have to vote in every poll" killed these things and it's not even a debate my dude. It went from a slow decline to an ocean cliff overnight.

That part definitely needs to go. I think it was responsible for a lot of the blowouts in the first few rounds of last contest.

I think the rise of video guides and the fact that even something like IGN can make a decent walkthrough with photos really hurt the site in the long run, and it just never really caught up since then

This is what the rally gang wanted. Notice how contests became fewer and farther between when rallies started deciding contests.

pjbasis posted...

This is what the rally gang wanted. Notice how contests became fewer and farther between when rallies started deciding contests.

I don't know that these things are related either.

Not anymore for sure, but Allen sure felt demotivated upon them two huge ones lol

Of course not from the rallies themselves but the drama concerning them.

Allen already told us that the biggest hurdle towards a new contest is getting the site's new owners to sign off on it.

ctesjbuvf posted...

Not anymore for sure, but Allen sure felt demotivated upon them two huge ones lol

Well, almost everyone was worn out by them on both sides by the time it was over. Most places that do extensive rallying ban rallies afterwards for a reason.

I was just mimicing ulti

I don't understand all the "vote in every poll" whinging. I don't think a typical GameFAQs user would open up the homepage, see the match banner, click to vote for 3 of the characters they saw, then just walk away and say f*** it because they don't know the 2 people in the last match. In that situation they would just pick the cooler looking character and be on their way.

BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

I don't understand all the "vote in every poll" whinging. I don't think a typical GameFAQs user would open up the homepage, see the match banner, click to vote for 3 of the characters they saw, then just walk away and say f*** it because they don't know the 2 people in the last match. In that situation they would just pick the cooler looking character and be on their way.

Their point isn't for the "typical GameFAQs user". It's for the non-user, very likely someone who's only coming here for a rallied character, and who will, in theory, be turned away because "da hell I just want to vote for LoL guy not all these other stupid characters".

Let's be real here, the percentage of poll voters in 2022 that aren't established users, or not capable of taking the 5 seconds to vote for the other options is probably less than 0.1%

Yeah, I don't think forcing people to vote in four matches turned away a lot of voters.

What it does do is create a lot of apathy voters, where instead of not voting in a match where you don't know/care about either option you are forced to. In most matches this probably cancels out as people just randomly select an option, but it can benefit characters/games with high recognition (e.g. Pac-Man) should they go up against a more niche opponent, leading to more blowouts.

I guess but typically I'd imagine the characters in question would get blown out by the likes of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong anyway. We just tend not to see it because neither character typically gets a good seed and they're often fed to stronger characters right away. Instead Donkey Kong drew perpetual choker Tidus while Pac-Man drew Sans from Undertale.

We've also held a grand total of two 1v1 character battles since the 4way era finished. Remember when a lot of us were surprised Vivi/DK went basically the same in 2010 as it did in 2004 despite DK having looked so bad in 4ways?

charmander6000 posted...

What it does do is create a lot of apathy voters, where instead of not voting in a match where you don't know/care about either option you are forced to. In most matches this probably cancels out as people just randomly select an option, but it can benefit characters/games with high recognition (e.g. Pac-Man) should they go up against a more niche opponent, leading to more blowouts.

Agreed; that's what I was getting at with my earlier post. I think we can agree that making users vote in all matches or none leads to some problems even if we can't all agree what the actual problems are.

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Remember when a lot of us were surprised Vivi/DK went basically the same in 2010 as it did in 2004 despite DK having looked so bad in 4ways?

https://oraclechallenge.com/archives.php?contest=SpC2k10&type=match&match=15

Nope, the Oracle consensus basically expected that result.

It also caused "rally spillover" where voters who came to rally one game/character wound up affecting matches that had nothing to do with the rally.

Big Bob posted...

It also caused "rally spillover" where voters who came to rally one game/character wound up affecting matches that had nothing to do with the rally.

Life is Strange beating Super Mario World was too funny.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Life is Strange beating Super Mario World was too funny.

nah this is a prime example of why rallies like that are dumb

I don't see the problem? Had Mario World actually lost that it would have been hilarious.

UltimaterializerX posted...

I don't see the problem? Had Mario World actually lost that it would have been hilarious.

not really, I don't care what Tumblr thinks of our contests

The alternative is things being way too predictable and contests dying, which goes back to my original point that this is the ultimate goal of the anti-rally people whether they know it or not. They might not actually want these things gone, but it's the end result of "I don't care what other sites think". You probably should welcome them if you want these to stick around.

Play Undertale.