Contest and Stats Discussion - Part 1385

Random hypothetical, but I wonder what contest results would be like if you could take everyone who's ever voted in a GameFAQs contest poll and force them to participate in every single match. 300k votes per match, absolute anarchy.

I feel like that number's got to be way higher than 300k. According to this poll:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2399-how-long-have-you-been-coming-to-gamefaqs

~45,000 voters in Summer 2006 had been on the site since at least 2002. Some of the matches towards the end of the 2002 Contest were pulling around 100,000 votes, so that leaves *at least* 55,000 voters that had already cycled out by 2006, let alone all the years after.

Yeah, if we're talking unique voters, I'd say we're probably over a million.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2426-hyrule-division-round-1-suikoden-vs-mega-man-x

The second match of the contest has traditionally been the spot for a surprise result. Not so here. The Oracle average for MMX was just under 70% and it exceeded that by a few percent.

I feel like the spiritual second match weirdness was actually upheld on match 3, even if match 2 was technically a seeding upset.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2427-hyrule-division-round-1-pokemon-vs-star-ocean

This was not a great contest for Heroic Mario (more on that later). Pokémon was a huge favorite here, but there was a handful of users who took a chance on Star Ocean, with HM leading the charge (from what I recall).

To be fair, there was reason to be skeptical of Pokémon at this point. Even those picking it weren't necessarily expecting a huge blowout. The Oracle average was only about 60% here. The last time we had seen Pokémon, it was losing handily to Xenogears. Even in the year of the Nintendo Boost in 2005, no Pokémon made either contest. I do wonder how Pikachu would've done had he been in the 2005 Character Battle.

Anyway, Pokémon immediately ended any doubt about the outcome of this match. It had nearly a quadrupling a minute in and nearly a tripling at the freeze before settling it at just below a doubling by the end. Despite this, nobody really thought Pokémon posed any kind of threat to fellow Nintendo series Metroid next round. This was just looked at as Star Ocean being pathetic.

Pokemon would get like 80% if you re-ran that poll now.

Man, I bet even Persona would wreck havoc in that contest these days over a lot of JRPG series in there.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2428-hyrule-division-round-1-metroid-vs-kirby

The Oracle average for this match was only 65% here because people were convinced Metroid can't SFF anything for some reason. It's hard to know how much of this result was SFF regardless because Kirby as a series is probably pretty weak. None of his games are particularly strong, and he probably derives a lot of his strength from his design and Smash, which wouldn't help the series here.

Kirby's strength is like 60% design, 30% Smash, and 10% his actual games.

To be fair, this was the first time we got to see anything Kirby in action that wasn't the titular character, IIRC.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2429-snake-division-round-1-metal-gear-vs-soul-calibur

The Oracle average was about 70% for Metal Gear here, so it essentially performed as expected. SoulCalibur really peaked with that close loss to KH1 in the first Games Contest. It never looked that good again.

The SoulCalibur/Kingdom Hearts match is one of those matches that only seems weirder in retrospect.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5140-which-1-seed-do-you-think-has-the-best-chance-of-unseating

We had a couple of polls leading up to the start of CBIX. It makes sense that Cloud won this poll (well, of those characters people thought could actually win) considering his traditional strength, but the correct answer was Snake if you paid attention to the bracket setup. He had a chance to face off against Link in the final alongside Mario or Samus, which might have been enough for him to win considering how close they were in the bonus poll.

Also let's talk about CBIX a little. It was by far the biggest bracket we've ever had, with a whopping 243 characters, which was way too many. We had some really bad fodder here. Allen brought back multiway polls, but it was 3 characters per match instead of 4 and only the top vote getter advanced.

Despite that, it really felt like Allen intended for this contest to be a love letter to Board 8. It was our first contest in two years and our first Character Battle in three years. The 1 seeds were all the Noble Nine. There was even a special Board 8 seed, where the 8 seeds were selected from (I assume) nomination topics Allen saw on the board.

Beyond that, Allen had a slow roll out where he revealed all the seeds a little at a time. He let us write bios for every single character. He let us make the match pics for every single match. He redid the poll layout a little and even included a function to share your vote to social media. He brought back the Battle Challenge.

In hindsight, I do kinda feel bad for Allen that the contest turned out the way it did because I believe he genuinely wanted this to be something fun for us in particular, and then, well, what happened happened, but we'll get there when we get there.

Leonhart4 posted...

We had a couple of polls leading up to the start of CBIX. It makes sense that Cloud won this poll (well, of those characters people thought could actually win) considering his traditional strength, but the correct answer was Snake if you paid attention to the bracket setup. He had a chance to face off against Link in the final alongside Mario or Samus, which might have been enough for him to win considering how close they were in the bonus poll.

I mean Cloud was also in that third of the bracket and therefore could get that match as well.

Was he? For some reason, I thought he was in a different section.

Yeah, it was Cloud, Snake and Crono in that third. Crono lost to Pikachu with Magus in the poll in round 2, and Cloud lost to... Squirtle.
Snake then got to face Pikachu and Squirtle together to trivialize a match he was probably already winning regardless.

Idk why I thought of this now, but Crono vs Magus probably would have been the stronger entrant than what we got right? Was this discussed already

Also while Snake was a clear board favorite to reach the final, a lot of people had Cloud as well. I wonder if Cloud had been the favorite without Sora being the favorite to be the third entrant there. Most people assumed Sora would beat Pikachu with Blue in the poll (or Fox), but he failed to do that.

In reality, Snake beats Cloud that year regardless of who the third option is.

pjbasis posted...

Idk why I thought of this now, but Crono vs Magus probably would have been the stronger entrant than what we got right? Was this discussed already

Would Crono have beaten Pikachu if Magus weren't the third entrant? It's hard to say. Pikachu looked pretty beastly (as did Pokemon in general) and CT was still in its swoon and hadn't rebounded yet.

Crono's bottom tier of the NN now, right? Sonic has the movies, Mega Man has all the retro collections (+ Dual Override), Snake is in Smash and has MGSD...

The only thing that can save him is an HD-2D remake. Which, honestly, isn't out of the question.

B8 is like 25% of the vote at this point. He might beat Link for all I know.

I don't think Mega Man has boosted and he lost to Crono last time.

Leonhart4 posted...

Would Crono have beaten Pikachu if Magus weren't the third entrant? It's hard to say. Pikachu looked pretty beastly (as did Pokemon in general) and CT was still in its swoon and hadn't rebounded yet.

47% for Pikachu and 12% for Magus, probably more than 3/4 of those go to of those go to Crono. But Pikachu would get rallies.

I do think Chrono Trigger was in the early stages of its cursed resurgence that almost bore fruit for it in 2015 during CBIX, and that drawing Magus with Pikachu was an omen of things to come, especially when it comes to CT getting the worst luck when it mattered.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2430-snake-division-round-1-fire-emblem-vs-silent-hill

This was one of the more debated round one matches, primarily because of how relatively unknown their strengths were. Fire Emblem was a clear favorite on B8 simply because it was Nintendo, but its overall prediction percentage was only 50.65% here, so this was basically a tossup overall. Also this match had the lowest vote totals of the contest, but it still managed to break 100k. Ah, those were the days.

Both of those series are probably stronger nowadays (mostly Fire Emblem).

I think FE only had like 3 games out in the West back then? 7/8/9.

Also at that time, FE8 still had a bad reputation due to being an easy game. FE9 sold poorly and Ike's popularity wouldn't pop off until SSBB which wasn't out yet.

It's probably somewhat amazing that FE got the win anyways. Perhaps credit was given for older games even if a voter had not actually played them.

It was probably more Silent Hill being weak than anything. That series is kind of dependent on SH2's reputation, which didn't take off until the era of youtube essays.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5141-which-27-seed-would-you-most-like-to-see-pull-a-surprise

In a weird way, this poll kinda demonstrates the value of match pics. Missile finished dead last (almost doubled by next to last place) in this poll of the 27 seeds, which should theoretically be made up of pretty weak entries. Give Missile a picture of a cute dog and he can beat Kerrigan (who isn't a world beater herself but still).

KamikazePotato posted...

It was probably more Silent Hill being weak than anything. That series is kind of dependent on SH2's reputation, which didn't take off until the era of youtube essays.

He wouldn't be strong, but James would probably be the strongest he's ever been now. Especially with remake pics

Funnily enough, going by American release dates, Fire Emblem was the newest entry in the contest. It had only become a series in May 2005, when Sacred Stones came out.

It was more of a series than Super Smash Bros was!

Big_Bob posted...

It was more of a series than Super Smash Bros was!

Yesmar's saying it was the newest series to get 2 games in America.

MacArrowny posted...

Yesmar's saying it was the newest series to get 2 games in America.

Well, if you count Melee as "Fire Emblem representation"...

it counts as two fire emblem games

the retention rate of xbox owners from One to Series X is surprisingly high. Considerable drop for Playstation

pjbasis posted...

He wouldn't be strong, but James would probably be the strongest he's ever been now. Especially with remake pics

Ironically survival horror characters are responsible for both of Tales Character Battle wins

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2431-snake-division-round-1-castlevania-vs-halo

This was our first upset of the contest. Halo was both the overall favorite and the board favorite (despite only having two games at this point but 3 was on the way). This was thought to be the ultimate day vote vs. night vote match. Castlevania had a great night vote but bad day vote, while Halo was considered king of the day vote (along with Kingdom Hearts). After seeing Master Chief mount two massive comebacks against Frog in 2004 (though he ultimately lost) and against DK in 2005, many people fell for the hype. I believe Lopen said that he thought Halo could mount a day vote comeback of up to 10,000 votes.

Obviously, that didn't happen. Castlevania built up a big lead overnight as expected, but when the day vote arrived, Halo...did nothing. It stalled and occasionally cut, but it never made any sort of serious attempt at a comeback. At this point, I think we hadn't quite learned the lesson that trends merely describe the match. They don't define it.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5142-with-the-deadline-at-8pm-pacific-tonight-have-you-entered

It was nice of Allen to include a "not filling out a bracket but still voting" option here and that was the clear winner. Gotta love the 15% who refuse to be involved in any way though...!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5143-character-battle-ix-division-1-round-1-link-vs-isaac-boi-vs

This was the first of three Isaacs in CBIX! This was the one from Binding of Isaac. Also Tingle was here. This was honestly not a great performance from Link. One of the things that gets lost from everything that happened here is that Round 1 and 2 Link might be the weakest version of him we've ever seen. People remember Cloud crapping the bed in this contest, but Link didn't look great either until it was time for him to rise up to defeat the forces of evil.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2432-snake-division-round-1-kingdom-hearts-vs-harvest-moon

People expected Harvest Moon to be one of the weaker entries in the contest. After all, it's a farming simulator, so when Kingdom Hearts "only" got 73% on it, it was treated like an underwhelming performance. Now it felt like its round 2 match against Castlevania was anybody's game.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5144-character-battle-ix-division-1-round-1-raiden-vs-waluigi-vs

I forgot to mention this in the CBIX overview, but we had 12-hour matches for the first three rounds (gotta wonder if things change if it were only the first two rounds). Anyway, Raiden was the big favorite on the board here, but there were a handful of users who thought Waluigi could catch some sort of joke vote or a rally or something. Like everything else with Waluigi, nothing materialized and Raiden won easily. Also Alan Wake was here.

Leonhart4 posted...

Like everything else with Waluigi, nothing materialized

Ice cold.

Someone at work mentioned that Waluigi was their favorite. My estimation of this person immediately dropped.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2433-mushroom-division-round-1-super-mario-bros-vs-madden-nfl

It should be no surprise that this was our blowout of the contest, and I believe this is the most individual votes a winner has ever received in a single match. Everyone knows Mario. GameFAQs doesn't like sports games, especially real life sports games. Boom. Tough actin' Tinactin.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5145-character-battle-ix-division-1-round-1-yoshi-vs-solaire-vs

It was a good thing the Battle Challenge existed for this contest because we had a lot of matches like this, especially in round 1, where we had a well established strong character against two fodder characters. With the Battle Challenge, you had to guess the right order for all three entrants, so you had to figure out who would finish second between Solaire and Demi-Fiend.

Leonhart4 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2433-mushroom-division-round-1-super-mario-bros-vs-madden-nfl

It should be no surprise that this was our blowout of the contest, and I believe this is the most individual votes a winner has ever received in a single match. Everyone knows Mario. GameFAQs doesn't like sports games, especially real life sports games. Boom. Tough actin' Tinactin.

Honestly, I wish Madden had a bit higher seed since I think this was the first real instance of seeing real sports games represented in the Character Battle. Would have been interesting to see how many people, particularly casuals, crash and burn on a Madden train. But SMB is just not the entity to bet against.

Leonhart4 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/5145-character-battle-ix-division-1-round-1-yoshi-vs-solaire-vs

It was a good thing the Battle Challenge existed for this contest because we had a lot of matches like this, especially in round 1, where we had a well established strong character against two fodder characters. With the Battle Challenge, you had to guess the right order for all three entrants, so you had to figure out who would finish second between Solaire and Demi-Fiend.

What's stuck with me about this match is how surprisingly solid Solaire's showing seemed to be, given Dark Souls was barely established at the time. If I'm not mistaken, that's 29.39% on Yoshi 1-on-1 (if you assume Demi-Fiend voters split in equal proportion to that percentage), which is a high fodder-level result if 2013 Yoshi was even close to his usual strength. With how much strength and esteem the Souls series has since gained here and with how Solaire's the closest thing to its mascot, I feel he would already not have been fodder in 2018.

I doubt Solaire is that much stronger. "Praise the sun" was a small meme back then that may have boosted him a little more than you'd expect, and it's not like he's in any other game.

1v1 is also a different entity.