Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1367

Look at the history of this poll:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8124-why-are-you-visiting-gamefaqs-today

The percentage for “I'm just here for the poll” has been consistently increasing by big chunks over time, meaning that people (at least poll voters) have been losing interest in everything else.

At the same time, though, people who are into videogames but don't use GameFAQs, they DO fully recognize the site for various reasons, mainly contests, boards, and guides for old games.

Maybe unsurprisingly, I've come across people who weren't actually aware the site still existed and keeps going to this day, but they still have interest in it because they mainly associate the site with retro games (which is ironically the lesser relevant part of the site in terms of traffic compared to newer games, despite being the actual main interest in social boards like this one), so they're actually willing to get back to it.

tl;dr: GameFAQs regulars are probably losing interest due to monotony, but the right publicity could bring people back and gather more interest, therefore injecting liveliness into a small community.

yeah gamefaqs still has good brand awareness among the older crowd, and could probably position itself to benefit from retro gaming booms at least a little

wow original Persona playrate poll

this should be low

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8586-

I expected the original game to have a low playrate, but I was surprised how the low the playrate is for even just one game in the series. This implies that neither Persona 4 nor Persona 5 have a playrate above 50%.

Not to mention Persona 1 and 2 are extremely rare as well.

We had an original Dark Souls playrate poll yesterday:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/8588-

45.96% playrate for Dark Souls, which doesn't really surprise me given that it is a difficult game. And only 25.88% of the site has actually beaten it.

GameFAQS sure loves Jack Black, huh?

I thought it was a joke post at first...

Now I don't know what to think...

Crazy this topic series has been going on so long. Cool to see deep dives into the contests. It’s what drew me into this board and site overall.

The Witcher is apparently the #3 most watched show on Netflix with a second season on the way

Expectations for Geralt for CBXI?

Maybe if it was the #2 most watched show I would have won the last contest...

I suspect Geralt got a bandwagon by the time he lost to Auron so it's hard to say. I expect a boost (Alucard got one in 2018 IIRC), but he could end up being relatively weaker.

Alucard was stronger in 2018 than he'd been in a decade plus yes

I'm not sure Geralt has as much room to boost as Alucard did. It'll help, but Alucard had OldFAQs strength and then Castlevania for Netflix introduced him to massive new audience, while Witcher 3 probably had a wider spread than the entire Castlevania series.

Witcher 3 had a wider spread in most places. Maybe even here, but SOTN has always been strong here, too. I'd agree with you that he has a lower ceiling, but Geralt could probably match 2013 Shepard at worst, I'd think.

Witcher 3 was the comfortable number 2 (you could argue Smash I guess) game last year so as long as season 2 is solid Geralt should be stronger, only concern is if CDPR backlash from Cyberpunk affects him

I'd have taken Geralt over 2013 Shepard just based on 2018 results, to be honest. Even factoring in weirdness in Auron/Geralt, beating FFVII in a three-way match was...not a particularly impressive feat.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

I'd have taken Geralt over 2013 Shepard just based on 2018 results, to be honest. Even factoring in weirdness in Auron/Geralt, beating FFVII in a three-way match was...not a particularly impressive feat.

I've always maintained Shepard staying above 10% in Link/Draven was the most impressive performance of the contest

2018 Geralt has a better chance of winning that match outright than finishing under 20%, just by the nature of rally nonsense.

over 20%?

no chance, even being extremely generous to Geralt and taking his number completely at face value, he's only projected to get 30% on Link alone

I get 2018 Link is a stronger Link but not by some overwhelming margin

also he will not be the beneficiary of any rally if he's dead last by a mile, nothing will stick to him, and people will just default to the closer match if they bother to vote at all

What was 2B's projection on link

pjbasis posted...

What was 2B's projection on link

27.66%

I wonder if "Endurance" will have trends because perhaps people are more willing to vote for it near bedtime. z.z

After seeing Alucard and Witcher 3's boosts in the recent years, my biggest regret out of CBX was not rallying for Hector into the contest, especially considering Simon and Richter did fairly well.

LeonhartFour posted...

I get 2018 Link is a stronger Link but not by some overwhelming margin

Strongly disagree.

Link only has so much room to boost

And 2018 Link would not have been that much stronger than hyper rallied "Draven killer mode" Link anyway

Leonhart4 posted...

Link only has so much room to boost

And 2018 Link would not have been that much stronger than hyper rallied "Draven killer mode" Link anyway

Well, we're talking about variables here.

I'd take 2018 Link over 2013 Link without a doubt. But that's just at face value.

Relatively speaking (in terms of current votals), not even the strongest Link of any era could beat another Draven-like menace of that magnitude.

No, I agree 2018 Link is the strongest Link we've seen since 2007. I just don't think there's a significant difference between the years. You could essentially treat every Link as near equals and you wouldn't be off by much.

Leon's probably right TBH.

Could Shepard and Garrus benefit from their remasters?

Never losing to Pokemon Trainer Red AGAIN

pjbasis posted...

Never losing to Pokemon Trainer Red AGAIN

Sora going to SFF him so hard now

More like Red will SFF Sora.

We can build quite a solid 64-character bracket solely using playable characters, even more so if you include Mii outfits.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

I mean, part of that is because IGN has evolved over the times. Those 8 million extra followers are partially the result of a long-term investment in staying relatively up to date and engage with the internet, while GameFAQs has tweeted 5 times in the last half decade.

IGN is also a gaming news website that people have a reason to follow on social media. What would a GameFAQs feed even consist of?

charmander6000 posted...

More like Red will SFF Sora.

We can build quite a solid 64-character bracket solely using playable characters, even more so if you include Mii outfits.

At first I was thinking that would be a really fun contest idea, but then I realized it would be completely indistinguishable from a normal CB bracket minus the Chrono Trigger folks

Sora will be stronger against non-Nintendo and fold back to pre-Smash levels against most Nintendo characters.

BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

At first I was thinking that would be a really fun contest idea, but then I realized it would be completely indistinguishable from a normal CB bracket minus the Chrono Trigger folks

Pretty much, looking at Leon's x-stats the only characters in 2018's top 32 that aren't playable or have a Mii outfit are Crono, Alucard, Auron, Geralt, Squall and Big Boss.

The contest could be interesting if SBAllen allowed character like Toon/Young Link, Zero Suit Samus and Dr. Mario, just for the arguments as to where they would rank.

swirIdude posted...

Sora will be stronger against non-Nintendo and fold back to pre-Smash levels against most Nintendo characters.

Sounds like Solid Snake to me.

sounds like Snake except for the part where that never happened to him

Bro it’s half the reason I picked Zelda to beat him. His support against Nintendo can be really iffy sometimes, especially without the bandwagon effect. It’s weird how he likes to overperform against Link and just die against anyone else.

except Zelda went on to beat Mario too so that wasn't his Nintendo support failing, that was Zelda just being beastly

Snake and Zelda put up similar performances on Sonic, too, suggesting they were just roughly equal

Samus is probably the better option for that argument but Samus tends to go crazy against Non Nintendo characters

I also think Snake was weaker in 18 than 10/13 because of MGS’s decline and Kojima’s ousting hurting the series but hard to really tell, probably middle of the pack noble nine instead of near the top

Zelda > Mario feels like a bandwagon result, though that's not to imply she wasn't still on a tear that contest.

The stupid thing is that if you take Zelda's matches against Squall and Snake at face value, Snake actually gained in strength relative to Squall since 2010. And Auron is stronger than Squall now apparently.

Zelda > Snake is probably a bandwagon result, too, but it wasn't because Snake folds to Nintendo.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sora didn't boost at all from Smash, just because at this point everyone on this site probably already has their opinion of him. This isn't like 2006 when this site was still growing and Snake was the focal point of the most hyped game ever and being introduced to a largely new fanbase.

Cloud seemed to boost from Smash, so it'd make sense for Sora to do so too.

Alucard's in a stage background, so he still counts.

The KH series is also about to be available on Switch.

Despite KH3 being mildly received I feel like the series stock has only risen since then.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Cloud seemed to boost from Smash, so it'd make sense for Sora to do so too.

Cloud didn't boost from Smash. He just had his decline lessened.

Well, I think the problem with Kingdom Hearts is that I feel like a lot of people turned on the series in the long gap between KH2 and KH3, and I don't know if Sora being in Smash changes their feelings about him.

At the very least, it'll have the same effect as Cloud in that he won't deteriorate at the same rate as other KH characters like Riku.

Can't get lower than 2018