Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1380

KamikazePotato posted...

Fun fact: Mass Effect 3 has only ever lost to contest finalists.

Thats actually really funny.

pjbasis posted...

Was I one of the two people?

I thought I picked against Dragon Age, but maybe I didn't do oracle

Oh good, I can access GameFAQs Contests, the Oracle, and Ngamer's sites again (although still no Guru data)

Yes, you and charmander (another contest regular I miss having around) were the two people in the Oracle who had Ori over Inquisition.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6578-have-you-pre-ordered-a-switch

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9877-are-you-planning-to-get-a-switch-2

Fairly similar results, though the options are different

Glad to see GameFAQs Contests up again. We might want to think about possibly backing up some of that data somehow in case the next time is permanent.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7949-division-5-round-1-stardew-valley-vs-destiny

This was the biggest blowout by an indie game, and it was really the perfect situation to pull it off. Stardew Valley is one of the most popular indie games, and Destiny was one of the easiest anti-vote magnets in the contest.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7950-division-5-round-1-super-mario-galaxy-2-vs-return-of-the

The blowout of the contest was pulled off by the best game in the contest! Galaxy 2 never really flirted with 90% as it peaked just over 88% early on, but it's still impressive to see the numbers go this high. Return of the Obra Dinn is one of the few indie games in the contest I'd played before the contest started, so it was unfortunate for me that it got pitted against my favorite game in the contest.

LeonhartFour posted...

Yes, you and charmander (another contest regular I miss having around)

hey I'm around

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7951-division-5-round-1-fallout-new-vegas-vs-the-stanley-parable
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7952-division-5-round-1-dark-souls-iii-vs-dishonored

No real surprises in this fourpack. Both of these matches went basically as expected in terms of Oracle averages. We already knew New Vegas had decent strength from 2015, and nobody expected Dark Souls III to be anywhere near the strength of the original. Neither game had done anything to change the expectation that New Vegas would win next round.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7953-division-5-round-1-binding-of-isaac-rebirth-vs-nioh

On the other hand, this was an upset on every level. Binding of Isaac was the overall favorite, the Guru favorite, and the Oracle favorite. It had become even more of one by the time this match rolled around with the success of indie games. It was close at the freeze, but then Nioh quickly took control and pulled away for an easy win.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7954-division-5-round-1-god-of-war-vs-the-talos-principle

There were some (like me) who had high expectations for GoW after its massive success and how well it had done in GotY. It put up a big number on Talos Principle, so it was off to a good start.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7955-division-6-round-1-persona-5-vs-heavy-rain

Heavy Rain was a time, wasn't it? Persona 5 flexed its muscles but couldn't quite hit the quadrupling here. The final result was within a tenth of a percent of the Oracle average, so we had a pretty good feel for this one.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7956-division-6-round-1-assassins-creed-black-flag-vs

There was some debate over this one. Black Flag was well liked by the Assassin's Creed fanbase, but it came out after the apex of the series and it wasn't what it once was anyway. Civilization V was a popular entry in the series, but it's part of a genre we don't care for. Well, it was over pretty quickly as Black Flag had over 60% at the freeze and coasted from there.

I'm surprised Heavy Rain even made it in. Time has not been kind to that game's perception.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7957-division-6-round-1-sonic-mania-vs-ys-viii

At the time, this was probably considered the dud of round 1 (at least by a game that won). Sonic Mania was a well-received 2-D Sonic game, but it underperformed its Oracle average by a full 10% in this match. In hindsight, Ys VIII turned out to have decent strength, and we just underestimated it.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7958-division-6-round-1-super-meat-boy-vs-slay-the-spire

Super Meat Boy was the Guru nomination, which is how it got such a high seed for an indie game. It also got paired against another indie game and put up a big number. Coupled with what Sonic Mania had just done, people started to wonder if Super Meat Boy could score the upset next round.

Yeah, Sonic remained the favorite, but the round 2 match was was expected to be a lot closer than it ended up being.

Ys is right up our alley in hindsight.

Ys VIII is the best in the series and possibly the best game Falcom has ever made*. It definitely deserved to be in the contest.

*imo

I played Ys VIII a few years ago and it's definitely very good

Not as good as some Trails games though

Yeah, Ys 8's absolutely the best Falcom game. Blows everything else away. Was good to see it be so much stronger than Sky.

It's even better than Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys?!

Ys IV isn't a top IV Ys game imo.

of course not, nobody reasonable ranks Ys IV: Mask of the Sun particularly highly

that's one of the two I haven't played, alas (that and V)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7959-division-6-round-1-portal-2-vs-tomb-raider

The lower half of Division 6 had three main contenders between Portal 2, Kingdom Hearts III, and Red Dead Redemption 2. I think Portal 2 was the Guru favorite. It had shown itself to have decent strength in 2015 with a 55/45 loss to Sonic 2, and there was more reason to trust in that than the other two. This is the only Tomb Raider game ever to make a contest, and it did decently enough.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7960-division-6-round-1-kingdom-hearts-iii-vs-disco-elysium

If you had KH3 winning next round, this result didn't make you feel great about that. Only doing 3% better on Disco Elysium (which was still PC exclusive at the time, I believe) than Portal 2 did on Tomb Raider was not an inspiring performance.

The difference in strength between KH1/2 and KH3 is pretty vast. Square really dropped the ball with 3.

Which is unfortunate because I still really liked KH3 despite all the things it has working against it

Biggest surprise was how good Sora was! Finally became a protagonist worth his salt.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7961-division-6-round-1-animal-crossing-new-leaf-vs-street

There was a little debate over this one because Animal Crossing has never been strong here, but New Horizons had just come out and Street Fighter V was a subpar entry into the series. Personally for me, SFV is probably the most disappointing game of the last generation. I loved SFIV so much, but the lack of any substantial single player mode at launch was a real bummer. I heard people say it turned around by the end, but I had bailed long before.

Oh yeah, Animal Crossing won easily.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7962-division-6-round-1-red-dead-redemption-2-vs-dying-light

Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most highly acclaimed games of all-time, which doesn't necessarily mean much around here in contests. Still, it did its job in round 1 with an easy quadrupling.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7963-division-7-round-1-dark-souls-vs-hotline-miami

There were many people who thought Dark Souls would benefit from the premise of the contest being Game of the Decade. Its influence on gaming as a whole is undeniable, and it already showed pretty decent strength in 2015. It was a dark horse pick to make the finals, and it got off to a good start here.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7964-division-7-round-1-rocket-league-vs-dragon-ball-fighterz

There's always that random 1-point round one match that ends up being one of the more memorable parts of the contest. Rocket League was the favorite, but there were some banking on Dragon Ball winning just by virtue of it being Dragon Ball. This was the first match of the contest where the outcome wasn't decided within the first 30 minutes. Rocket League eventually pulled away for the win, but it was nice to see a close match amid all these round 1 blowouts.

My lasting memory of the Rocket League/Dragon Ball FighterZ match is of the match pics and related discussion, which rarely seemed to be much of a factor that contest. I had stumbled on the URLs for the match pics ...somehow (I forget how at the moment); with no one else here finding them, that meant I served as our match pic source for I think just about the entire first round. While said pics did spark some discussion, there wasn't usually much to see, as 2020 match pics starting as basically the involved games' coverarts seemed thoroughly predictable.

I had this match pegged as one of the few exceptions, however, as FighterZ should have had a significant pic advantage on paper (which was mainly why I picked it, IIRC). However, 2020's initial match pics came in two parts, with two separate URLs - one piece of official art (usually coverart) and one official logo, which Allen then assembled together. The logo went superimposed on the middle of the cover/other official art, and I believe the latter also had ~one third trimmed, from the top and bottom equally when in portrait orientation, in order to fit the match pic format. That combination overcame Dragon Ball's foreseen match pic advantage, something I recall being slow to realize.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7965-division-7-round-1-yakuza-0-vs-the-witness

We had seen two Yakuza characters flop in 2018, so there was some reluctance to expect it to score a big blowout. No one thought it could lose to something like The Witness, but the Oracle average was 63%, so Yakuza went over and above here. It got people wanting to believe it could win next round, too.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7966-division-7-round-1-metal-gear-solid-v-vs-dead-cells

Yell Dead Cells. Wrong MGS game but close enough! Phantom Pain is a very divisive game in the series, which could've led to some debatable matches and potential to get upset along the way. Unfortunately, MGSV got a pretty predictable path, and it played out that way.

Yakuza as a series is definitely stronger than its characters. There will be respect votes from people who have no idea who the characters are.

Interestingly in the stats MGSV looked better than 2015 despite the online backlash. Perhaps the people who got around to playing it after launch outnumbered those who were put off by it.

Yakuza was robbed in round 2. MGS won literally on name alone.

Nah MGSV won by being a fantastic game

shane15 posted...

Yakuza was robbed in round 2. MGS won literally on name alone.

Ehhhh a lot of people really love MGSV, especially people who are not older MGS diehards which is a large number even on this website. In a lot of ways it prefigured Breath of the Wild in terms of excellence in open world mechanics and design.

shane15 posted...

Yakuza was robbed in round 2. MGS won literally on name alone.

Get a better name imhotbqh

(Seriously though, a lot of people really like MGSV. I don't get it either but it's true!)

I actually thought most people didn't like MGSV. Gonna be honest i got bored doing the exact same base capture stuff over and over again and the last part of the game was unfinished and a mess from what i remember.

I love MGSV for all the reasons people love it.

But it's still at the bottom of the 5 games for all the reasons people don't like it. (yakuza looks up my alley though, so that could be a flipped vote one day)

I got bored of MGSV pretty quickly when i realized the basic gameplay didn't change too much from mission to mission, and with the story being mediocre I lost interest.

Never played a Yakuza game I didn't finish, though!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7967-division-7-round-1-batman-arkham-city-vs-xenoblade

This was a surprising result. We knew what Arkham City's strength was from the 2015 Games Contest, and we all assumed Xenoblade 2 would be a clear step down from the original game. As it turns out, they were pretty close together! Arkham City's Oracle average was about 60% and Xenoblade 2 became the strongest first round loser, finishing 32nd in the final X-Stats.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7968-division-7-round-1-bioshock-infinite-vs-terraria

Even with Arkham City putting up a lackluster performance, BioShock Infinite couldn't put up a strong enough number to make you think it could challenge for the upset next round. Infinite was another one of those games that would've been a target for a sexy upset pick in the right setup, and instead it got an easy one-and-done path.

Xenoblade 2 > Bioshock Infinite would've been a fun upset pick. Don't think many people here would have taken it.

yeah that would have been upsetting

I wonder if Xenoblade 2 takes the win in a rematch. The game got a sizable sales bump from Pyra/Mythra getting into SSBU and GameFAQs likes SSBU enough that some people might have joined in on that bump.

If the match happened this very moment I think any SSBU Xenoblade 2 boost would be offset by Nintendo being the most hated gaming company in the world right now.

Is Xenoblade 3 stronger?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/9055-best-of-2022-sequels-and-spinoffs

You decide. This is the only poll it ever made.

I would expect 3 to be stronger than 2. The majority of fans seem to like it more, at least.

I was about to say Horizon: Forbidden West was weak, but then I remembered it got SFF'd by God of War.

MacArrowny posted...

I would expect 3 to be stronger than 2. The majority of fans seem to like it more, at least.

From my perspective Xenoblade 3 mostly came and went. It was less divisive than 2 but also didn't inspire as much love (or reach as wide of an audience). Coming out later in the Switch's lifespan doesn't help either.

I don't think any of that's true, personally! Except the less divisive part. People love the hell out of XB3.

KamikazePotato posted...

From my perspective Xenoblade 3 mostly came and went. It was less divisive than 2 but also didn't inspire as much love (or reach as wide of an audience). Coming out later in the Switch's lifespan doesn't help either.

That's sort of the feeling I got as well. Dropping the DLC story a few days before TotK came out certainly didn't help things.

Leonhart4 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7967-division-7-round-1-batman-arkham-city-vs-xenoblade

This was a surprising result. We knew what Arkham City's strength was from the 2015 Games Contest, and we all assumed Xenoblade 2 would be a clear step down from the original game. As it turns out, they were pretty close together! Arkham City's Oracle average was about 60% and Xenoblade 2 became the strongest first round loser, finishing 32nd in the final X-Stats.

I actually considered Xenoblade 2 over Arkham in my original bracket draft. Glad I changed, but Xenoblade 2 taking it to something we knew had some good strength sure was validating as a Xenoblade 1 Division winner backer.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7969-division-7-round-1-diablo-iii-vs-zero-escape

Division 7 was full of games that would've been easy upset targets but got predictable paths instead. I don't know if it was hatred of Diablo III, love of Zero Escape, or both, but Virtue's Last Reward actually led for a solid two minutes before Diablo III pulled away for an unimpressive win (reminder that Mass Effect 2 quadrupled VLR in 2015).

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7970-division-7-round-1-the-last-of-us-vs-crusader-kings-ii

Dark Souls vs. The Last of Us was the most debated division final, and for good reason. TLOU had looked solid in 2015, and the sequel was on the horizon. The TLOU2 story leaks came out shortly after this match. It's hard to say what kind of impact it had on TLOU's chances, but the negative backlash certainly didn't help.

Dark Souls turned out to be strong enough that it wouldn't have mattered anyway. TLOU would have needed quite the boost from the sequel.

Leonhart4 posted...

Division 7 was full of games that would've been easy upset targets but got predictable paths instead

This was a general bracket problem imo, even if it was at its worst here

upon further reflection Skyward Sword's perfect placement would be a 15 or 16 that loses immediately but we get a good read on it.