Contest Stats and Discussion - Part 1373

Where remembering a contest that happened 20 years ago has made this topic more lively than it's been in the last three years!

~*creativename's contest site*~
http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/drupal/

~*The Board 8 Wiki (lots of useful contest and board information, including all past Post-Contest Analyses*~
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page

~*List of All Polls (a search bar is at the bottom)*~
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll

~*NGamer64's Archive Sites (good stuff!) and (LOL) X-Stats Sim*~
http://www.thengamer.com/
http://thengamer.com/xstats

~*GameFAQs Contests Hall of Fame*~
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/GameFAQs_Contests_Hall_of_Fame
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/GameFAQs_Contests_Match_Hall_of_Fame

~*Closest Wire-To-Wire Matches*~
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Closest_Wire-to-Wire_Matches

~*All-Time Guru List*~
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/All_Time_Guru_Rankings

~*Most Surprising Results*~
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Most_Surprising_Results

~*Contest Histories*~
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Contest_Histories

~*All the Match Pics*~
http://www.gamefaqscontests.com/gallery/index.php

~*Daily Vote Trends - An Explanation for Dummies*~
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Daily_Vote_Trends

~*Leonhart4's Trend Charts*~
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?hl=en&key=tOGmynfNIiNy5VukpEF-PdA&hl=en#gid=0

~*Simple Explanation of Extrapolated Standings*~
A = Strongest Character
B = Character Weaker than A
C = Character Weaker than B
To figure out a character's extrapolated percentage ---> [(CvB)(BvA)]/50 = CvA
To compare how C would do against B ---> [(CvA)/(BvA)]*50 = CvB
To figure out how B would do against A ---> [(CvA)/(CvB)]*50 = BvA

I’m shocked we’ve gotten so much content from 2k3.

We need this now

Have any of you thought of ever running unofficial GameFAQs contests (such as character battles and best game ever) exclusively for this board just to keep the spirit alive? I swear that I saw someone do this once sometime last decade but I don't exactly remember when.

We can do it with polls that will inevitably get stuffed or we can do it without polls that will get 20 votes, either of which is a sad outcome.

GameFAQs needs a successor. Or a total facelift.

Yeah, board contests can be fun, but they are no substitute for the GameFAQs front page, even if the polls get a fraction of what they did 15 years ago.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1361-north-division-final-link-vs-samus-aran

Not a great result. Barely better than what Mario would get on Samus. >_>

Still my biggest regret was how I acted after that first Mario/Samus result. I’m genuinely ashamed.

I think we have all said some stupid s*** on this board we regret

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1362-east-division-final-cloud-strife-vs-sonic-the-hedgehog

I think this is when people really started believing Cloud could beat Link.

If we assume Samus and Sonic are still equal, Link is projected to get thrashed by Cloud even before accounting for SFF in Link vs Samus. Metroid Prime really worked wonders and Samus has never really looked back.

The 2003 X-Stats projected a 53.98% victory for Samus against Sonic, and she got 57.51% a year later. If that ratio held in 2003, that means Samus should've gotten 41.09% against Link. It's kind of a shame we rarely get to see how strong Samus really is. She got stuck against Mario twice in 2018, which muddled her true strength. She was the third person in the final with Snake and Draven, so she got pulverized there.

We've probably only gotten a legitimate reading on Samus twice, both times in which she ultimately lost to Cloud (2004 and 2010). Every other time, she's gotten SFF'd or LFF'd by Link and/or Mario (or hidden behind it, in the case of 2002), other than the weird case in 2013.

Is there much of anything that would suggest Samus's results against Mario wouldn't be a good representation of her strength in 2018, though? I mean, I guess it's funny to think that maybe after all this time, Mario could have rSFFed Samus in a full circle moment, but it just seems more likely Mario = Samus really is the true dynamic in the days of 30,000 vote totals and SFF just wasn't much of a factor this time around.

Samus vs. Snake is still a weird outlier because everything in the 2018 winners bracket suggests Cloud = Mario = Samus = Zelda = Snake except for that result.

(And don't suggest Samus SFF'd Snake, it was silly in 2006, it's still silly now)

Snake and Zelda probably below the others, Zelda overperforms after the Snake result.

Yeah Snake isn’t that strong. Definitely below the others, Zelda as well but not as much.

LightningStrikes posted...

Yeah Snake isn’t that strong. Definitely below the others, Zelda as well but not as much.

Not as much? Snake/Zelda was 50/50.

By about 0.6%. ;)

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/best-directors-of-the-last-25-years/

Looks like a big rally (or “rally”) for Denis Villenueve - Nolan was at 74% last I checked. Should still win though. His next closest match was 86% against Jordan Peele.

For the talk that Zelda boosted after beating Snake, Snake did a full percent better on Sonic than she did, and he faced Sonic after she did.

I just don't buy that Mario/Snake is a 56-57% win for Mario. It puts Snake awfully close to Tifa, and I don't think he'd be in danger of losing that one (or losing to Seph either). It'd make Sonic look extra pathetic too (which I guess isn't that hard to believe for some people but yeah).

I am curious to put this to the ultimate test.

If Snake = Samus, where does that put Magus against Tifa's division?

If Snake = Samus, Auron gets 46.50% on Tifa, Vincent gets 41.11%, and Magus gets 39.56%

For the record, Frog was worth 37.33% on Tifa, which would mean Magus beats Frog with 52.82%

Leonhart4 posted...

For the talk that Zelda boosted after beating Snake, Snake did a full percent better on Sonic than she did, and he faced Sonic after she did.

This is a good point.

I think in general, I would probably trust losers bracket results the least.

ctesjbuvf posted...

This is a good point.

I think in general, I would probably trust losers bracket results the least.

I dunno, the losers bracket rematches were remarkably consistent. The biggest disparity was probably Samus almost beating Mario in the rematch, and she didn't lose by that much the first time.

I don't know if the results back this up, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Main Bracket winners (except Seph) all overpeformed, at least a little bit, in their first Champions Bracket match. We've seen similar dynamics play out multiple times in the past.

It would make sense for Seph not to overperform because of that because he was in the main bracket, but Mega Man and Snake lost right away (and Mega Man won the rematch, too), so I'm not sure that logic fits either.

The result that always stood out to me as fishy was Pikachu > Mega Man, mostly because the contest was on hiatus for a week prior to the Champions Bracket.

Crono ~ Pikachu ~ Mega Man > Bowser ~ Yoshi with 55% seemed relatively sensible to me.

IIRC, while it wasn't a Snake sprite or anything, Snake looked underwhelming in the Samus/Snake match picture. Might have just been the mobile version that looked funky, it's been awhile.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1363-south-division-final-mario-vs-sephiroth

Yeah, Final Fantasy VII meant business this year.

Not the first time Sephiroth would kill Mario.

SC2K3 might be peak Clinkeroth. Nothing could even come close to any of them that year.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1364-south-division-final-solid-snake-vs-mega-man

Snake would get Mega Man back eventually but it wasn't time yet.

And the next year, he wouldn't even get Solid Snake pics (aside from his infamous beatdown of Tanner and I guess technically the sprite round against Frog). I do wonder if those Naked Snake pics hurt him because he had rematches against both Knuckles and Mega Man, and he did noticeably worse against them both.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1365-tournament-semifinal-link-vs-cloud-strife

The hero is defeated.

Cloud he come to town

Final Fantasy always wins forever and ever

Toon Link pictures should make Link stronger, not weaker.

People were hating hard on Wind Waker's design choices. Now everyone has grown to love it. I thought it was pretty neat back in the day. I liked alot of cel-shaded games actually. Biggest game today is using that artstyle. Total 180.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1366-tournament-semifinal-sephiroth-vs-mega-man

This was a rematch from 2002. In just one year, Sephiroth changed a 50.51% win to a win by 61.18%.

TeamRocketElite posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1365-tournament-semifinal-link-vs-cloud-strife

The hero is defeated.

It's funny because I think this match proves how impossible it is to beat Link under normal circumstances. Peak Cloud + Kingdom Hearts + Cel-Shaded Link = just a 51.5% win. Nothing else will ever be capable of that again without a rally.

Wonder how Sephiroth does in Link directly that year

The 2003 Seph/Mega Man match had 26,835 more votes than their 2002 match. Mega Man had 28 more votes in 2003 than in 2002.

ZenOfThunder posted...

I think we have all said some stupid s*** on this board we regret

Certainly not me!

I remember Wylvane would rapid refresh on the updater during the live rush so the updater would have hundreds of entries on it

Leonhart4 posted...

The 2003 Seph/Mega Man match had 26,835 more votes than their 2002 match. Mega Man had 28 more votes in 2003 than in 2002.

These are the cool trivia things.

KamikazePotato posted...

It's funny because I think this match proves how impossible it is to beat Link under normal circumstances. Peak Cloud + Kingdom Hearts + Cel-Shaded Link = just a 51.5% win. Nothing else will ever be capable of that again without a rally.

I feel like Peak Cloud would have been a hypothetical Summer of 1998 contest (after FF7, before OoT)

It's kinda wild that Twilight Princess truly made Link untouchable to conventional defeats considering its current standing in the hierarchy

And then he got BotW and things just weren't fair anymore.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1776-midgar-division-final-cloud-strife-vs-sephiroth

Sephiroth got pretty close all things considered. The 2004 rematch wouldn't be as kind.