Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1377

TeamRocketElite posted...

It seemed to have fairly normal trends in the mid 2024 poll. I have no idea where this burst and collapse came from.

It's not explainable by the Geolocation results either. Like a Dragon only did about 1.5% better in the US compared to its worldwide result. Looking at the other continents, there weren't notable showings in any specific countries other than a 22.58% in Belgium and 20% in Hungary.

I do have the full poll updates and trend charts, and will be posting those soon.

Poll updates and trend charts for yesterday's poll:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q4JMGGnwWAqdN-QDnmq2ua5QAZnWTrm3ambUTNzMmJ0/pub?gid=661222857

The trend charts here suggest that FFVII Rebirth's poor start was mostly due to the unusually strong early vote from Like a Dragon in the first 3 hours of the poll. The first 5 minutes were fairly normal for Rebirth, and does not suggest it was doing poorly because it had terrible early vote naturally.

Breaking up the poll into the various time periods is where things get interesting. Like a Dragon didn't dominate the initial board vote, but then gained almost 4% on each of the first 2 updates after the freeze and continued to rise until hitting a maximum percentage of 27.15% at 12:45 AM. It would then go on an epic collapse by bleeding 15.13% for the rest of the poll.

The collapse of Like a Dragon after the first 3 hours came at the expense of Balatro and FFVII Rebirth absorbing most the percentage it was bleeding. To a very minor extent, Unicorn Overlord also did slightly better after the collapse happened.

Is there anything that can be done about the New Jersey vote stuffer? Because this is super lame. It seems likely that Balatro would have come second and TTYD would be winning without them, but let’s see.

Surprisingly poor showing from Erdtree, I guess being an expansion hurt it after all. Also not good from Animal Well after Balatro looked good. Other than that not massively surprising stuff.

The Geolocation votes for the poll with Wukong on it are going to look really funny, can't wait.

Is GameFAQs still available in China? Looks like it’s been a while since there’s been a vote from there.

Either way, Stellar Blade is collapsing now, and Erdtree is rising. Looking like a three-way race to win it.

Okay, I'm sure this is not discussion worthy, as it happened a year ago, but looked over last year's polls, I was shocked Alan Wake II lost to f***ing Star Ocean:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9422-best-of-2023-fall

I know this site loves JRPGs, but geez.

Let's go TTYD

Lorelei getting no respect!

The New Jersey stuffer strikes again for Stellar Blade, which currently has 88.1% in New Jersey.

"You'll all stuffer the consequences!"

I blame Zen

Super lame if Stellar Blade wins today because of a vote stuffer but I'm not really expecting anyone to do anything about it.

LightningStrikes posted...

Is there anything that can be done about the New Jersey vote stuffer?

Send a support ticket with the information that we have.

That would assume Fandom would care enough to look into it

Well I submitted a ticket either way. Others can try as well if it will get it noticed.

Big_Bob posted...

Okay, I'm sure this is not discussion worthy, as it happened a year ago, but looked over last year's polls, I was shocked Alan Wake II lost to f***ing Star Ocean:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9422-best-of-2023-fall

I know this site loves JRPGs, but geez.

No one played Alan Wake 2. Also SO2 is a much better game.

MacArrowny posted...

No one played Alan Wake 2. Also SO2 is a much better game.

Well on track to being Remedy’s best selling game! Also the second best game that year. However it was still very new and this site does love its RPGs. Alan Wake II did pretty well considering. If there is ever another game contest, I reckon it does quite well.

Alan Wake II was so good. Though I think it only has around 2 million lifetime sales.

Alan Wake 2 didn't release physical and didn't even come out on Steam. 2 million is an achievement.

LightningStrikes posted...

Well on track to being Remedy’s best selling game! Also the second best game that year. However it was still very new and this site does love its RPGs. Alan Wake II did pretty well considering. If there is ever another game contest, I reckon it does quite well.

Eh, I doubt it'd be in the top 20 so far for the 2020s. By the time GotD3 comes around (if it does) it won't be in the top 32.

That would be the top 25% though!

On a different note:



The system works!!!

Why the hell would you go through so much effort for a meaningless poll.

all i can think of is they were testing it in a poll they THOUGHT no one would care about to employ later, but jokes on them there will never be another contest worth caring about

To think this all started because he hated Christmas music

Leonhart4 posted...

To think this all started because he hated Christmas music

Incredible detail, glad the feedback response included it

wait today's poll but not yesterdays?

Because Rebirth won anyway

KamikazePotato posted...

Incredible detail, glad the feedback response included it

Maybe there is still hope for this website.

FFDragon posted...

wait today's poll but not yesterdays?

Yesterday's poll got stuffed as well. Like a Dragon was the game the vote stuffer chose to support.

The question was about why the cheated votes weren't removed from yesterday's poll. The answer is that it wouldn't change the winner.

Final Fantasy
Mario
Zelda
Sonic

For the GotY Final Four

GameFAQs is BACK baby

(Sonic won't win, I know, but it should)

TeamRocketElite posted...

The question was about why the cheated votes weren't removed from yesterday's poll. The answer is that it wouldn't change the winner.

counterpoint: i want balatro to look better

Shame about Stellar Blade. I think this is a fairly impressive result for it even now that the stuffing has been removed, but the stuffing is all anyone will remember after today.

Leonhart4 posted...

To think this all started because he hated Christmas music

I feel like I’m missing context here. What happened?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9773-how-do-you-feel-about-christmas-music

They also vote stuffed for the "I'm indifferent" option there. Somehow, it still lost.

I was gonna say even when we knew it was being stuffed that it was a good performance by Stellar Blade. Though it's hard to say until we know how weak a TTYD remake might be.

Summer poll:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9787-

Zelda with the early lead this time.

Astro Bot just gained almost 2% on the most recent update while Zelda lost over 3.5% at the same time. I don't know if this is vote stuffing, or just a normal update.

We'll have to wait for the poll to reach 500 votes for the Geolocation results to become publicly available to confirm this.

It appears there is in fact vote stuffing from the New Jersey stuffer, this time for Zelda. 74.19% in New Jersey is unusually high.

The stuffing wouldn't have been easy to notice going off the early result as is it generally expected that Zelda would dominate the early vote.

I am a bit surprised the stuffer has chosen Zelda this time as the previous 2 polls suggested the stuffer had an anti-winner bias and was attempting to change the winner of the poll by vote stuffing. Going with Zelda simply reinforces a game that could have been expected to win the poll. With Astro Bot keeping it this close, perhaps the game might actually be winning if not for the vote stuffing.

I guess we’ll have to submit a ticket every day to preserve the integrity of the GotY

Thousand Year Door winning game of the year would be funny not gonna lie

If Zelda beats Astrobot then FF7 has it in the bag.

LusterSoldier posted...

It appears there is in fact vote stuffing from the New Jersey stuffer, this time for Zelda. 74.19% in New Jersey is unusually high.

The stuffing wouldn't have been easy to notice going off the early result as is it generally expected that Zelda would dominate the early vote.

I am a bit surprised the stuffer has chosen Zelda this time as the previous 2 polls suggested the stuffer had an anti-winner bias and was attempting to change the winner of the poll by vote stuffing. Going with Zelda simply reinforces a game that could have been expected to win the poll. With Astro Bot keeping it this close, perhaps the game might actually be winning if not for the vote stuffing.

The NJ numbers for Zelda are much lower now. It's still disproportionately high (38%), but it might have just been a flukey early vote. California's Astro Bot numbers for example are also lopsided, but in the other direction.

Wait until the kiddies wake up

That Zelda ASV will win the day

That is the question isn’t it. With Astro Bot being very Nintendo-like. Of course as a huge Zelda fan, I hope Echoes of Wisdom doesn’t win this.

With how strong Persona is on this site, Metaphor still has a shot.

Big_Bob posted...

With how strong Persona is on this site, Metaphor still has a shot.

I mean Persona 4 and 5 are popular

Reload didn't do great the other day

But Metaphor is riding off of 5's coat tails so I won't entirely rule it out

Metaphor is definitely doing a lot more than riding on 5’s coattails. It is a popular game in its own right. However it’s hard to say where it lands just now.

Also the history of remakes not doing so well in GOTY polls, Reload included, makes what TTYD did yesterday really impressive.