Game of the Decade: 2010-2019 Contest Analysis Crew - Part 6

hmmmm

Here comes Persona

100 votes with an hour left

Destroy them all

Now it’s a contest

too many stalls here

persona gonna need some crono magic

The Mana Sword posted...

too many stalls here

persona gonna need some crono magic

Or that Mario "clutch"

ya go my p4

from one persona comeback into another persona match

persona is the luckiest entrant this year by far

yeah this isn’t gonna happen

yeah smash sucks, either mario sucks more or rsff

persona 4 = persona 5 called it

Witcher 3 more like Western SFF 3

witcher could be dealing with western games all the way to zelda

transcience posted...

yeah smash sucks, either mario sucks more or rsff

persona 4 = persona 5 called it

I'm okay with this

KamikazePotato posted...

P4 doing well makes Red Dead Redemption 1 look good which means RDR2 look good which makes Portal 2 look good!

Weird xstat logic prevails one once

Okay do the Xenoblade rally hurt P5's board vote

Or something

these witcher 3 trends are hilarious after last round

transcience posted...

these witcher 3 trends are hilarious after last round

Everyone's trends are weird because of rally spillover it seems

oh wow persona actually won by 8 votes without the double counting

man I was that close to nailing division 4 outside of fe/xenoblade

Leonhart4 posted...

Everyone's trends are weird because of rally spillover it seems

It has nothing to do with rally spillover, because there is no universe in which rallied P4G voters favor Portal 2 over Persona 5. I don't even know how to explain the trends we've seen here so far, honestly.

MetalmindStats posted...

It has nothing to do with rally spillover, because there is no universe in which rallied P4G voters favor Portal 2 over Persona 5. I don't even know how to explain the trends we've seen here so far, honestly.

Xenoblade was also rallying

MetalmindStats posted...

It has nothing to do with rally spillover, because there is no universe in which rallied P4G voters favor Portal 2 over Persona 5. I don't even know how to explain the trends we've seen here so far, honestly.

Xenoblade ralliers/supporters might be antivoting Persona in general.

Leonhart4 posted...

Xenoblade was also rallying

Yeah no, a day-old 70-upvote rally and a 5-hour-old 42 upvote rally don't explain Portal 2 winning the board vote, even if the voters from Xenoblade's rallies preferred Portal 2 over Persona 5, and if anything I'd expect that to be the other way around.

MetalmindStats posted...

Yeah no, a day-old 70-upvote rally doesn't explain Portal 2 winning the board vote, even if the voters from Xenoblade's rally preferred Portal 2 over Persona 5, and if anything I'd expect that to be the other way around.

Not the only rally but sure man believe that the board vote trends for these two games were the exact opposite of what they had been up to this point for no reason at all

Leonhart4 posted...

Not the only rally but sure man believe that the board vote trends for these two games were the exact opposite of what they had been up to this point for no reason at all

Well, you seem quite content to believe that P4G's failed last-minute push came from thin air, so sure, why not?

MetalmindStats posted...

Well, you seem quite content to believe that P4G's failed last-minute push came from thin air, so sure, why not?

Failed last hour, yeah

The rally had pretty clearly died out before the match ended

Leonhart4 posted...

Failed last hour, yeah

The rally had pretty clearly died out before the match ended

Well, it was still pinned at the start of the current matches, and in fact it's still pinned now. That spillover most certainly favors Persona 5, and I have a very hard time believing it's lesser than the spillover from Xenoblade's random 40-upvote rally that's barely in the top 15 hot subreddit posts.

Also, Portal 2 won the board vote in two out of its previous three matches, and the other was against a game with a significant minority of bracket support that wasn't actually a threat to win the match (and that B8 seems to like quite a bit more than GameFAQs at large). Likewise, Portal 2 wasn't contending for the win here, so it's not hard for me to believe B8 favored it for whatever reason.

The pinned rally said the match ended an hour earlier than it actually did.

You wouldn't think it would matter but the rally clearly stalled out with an hour left.

Leonhart4 posted...

The pinned rally said the match ended an hour earlier than it actually did.

You wouldn't think it would matter but the rally clearly stalled out with an hour left.

Maybe the old pin, but not the version that had already replaced it by the time the match had an hour to go: Said rally being framed as a generic Persona rally is yet another reason its spillover should be outweighing the spillover from Xenoblade's rally now that there's no longer a Xenoblade to vote for.

I don't really know what to think of Witcher 3/Persona 5 next round because Witcher 3 just keeps obliterating every western game in its path

Previous Results: Smash once again proves the Nintendo hierarchy can't be shaken with an easy win over Mario Odyssey. Xenoblade had a tough time with P4G, but managed to hold it off in the end. Guess the games are about even (also lol three houses)

Crew Predictions: 109/116

Next Round Thoughts: Hope you like SFF matches.

Crew Prediction Challenge:

Moltar: 108
Kleenex: 108
Leonhart: 103
transience: 102
Guest: 93

Crew Accuracy Challenge: Leon gets the point for Smash, and transience gets the point for Xenoblade.

Moltar: 32
transience: 24
Kleenex: 19
Leonhart: 19
Guest: 18 (spooky96, Hbthebattle (3), Black Turtle, ctes (2), MetalmindStats (2), MechanicalWall (2), Kotetsu, pjbasis, Nintendogs, SuperNiceDog, FFDragon, Sir Chris, DoctorJimmy)

aw yeah nice to be the most right about Smash

new guest sign-up topic

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78666359

Round 4 – Dark Souls vs. The Last of Us

Moltar’s Analysis

Dark Souls
Round 1 – 82.99% vs. Hotline Miami
Round 2 – 77.34% vs. Rocket League
Round 3 – 63.29% vs. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The Last of Us
Round 1 – 81.85% vs. Crusader Kings II
Round 2 – 63.28% vs. Diablo III
Round 3 – 55.24% vs. Batman: Arkham City

MGSV vs. Diablo 3? yeah sorry TLOU I can’t back you here. That R3 number is fine, but overall, Dark Souls has looked too good this year to suddenly be in trouble for this match. It outdid its percentage on MGSV by 8% from five years ago. Funny enough, TLOU would have won this match five years ago according to the almighty x-stats. Now, DS looks to have boosted enough to flip that result.

It looks like Dark Souls would be predicted to win this by around a 55/45 margin. Seems like people are down on TLOU right now due to ~reasons~ so I wouldn’t be surprised if it slightly underperformed here.

Moltar’s Bracket: Dark Souls

Moltar’s Prediction: Dark Souls – 57%

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transience’s Analysis

What was once a pretty heavy debate now seems like a formality. I think I differ from others on Dark Souls, though - it's decently strong but I don't think it has what it takes to beat Skyrim. It's got one of the luckiest draws in the contest, even moreso than Persona 5 who is sleepwalking to the top 8.

The Last of Us just isn't any good. It's a real good thing that it didn't have a good opponent in its side of the bracket because it could have easily lost. Forget Dark Souls - does it even beat Bloodborne? 55% on Arkham City isn't awful, but it's not great. Dark Souls could probably go pretty high here, something akin to the number Witcher is currently getting on God of War, but that wouldn't make me sweat for Skyrim. I just don't think much of this division at all. It's one of the worst we've ever had.

transience's prediction: Dark Souls with 58.41%

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Leonhart’s Analysis

This match became much more interesting within the last week, at least in terms of trying to predict the final percentage. Dark Souls came into this match the clear favorite, although I don’t think it has honestly looked as good as some people. Like Xenoblade, it’s just had competition that lets it look good, and even then, the MGSV number was a disappointment to some. The Last of Us has underperformed in some respects in every match, although by the end of the one against Batman, it wound up looking like a solid win.

And then the leaks for The Last of Us 2 happened, and the internet did internet things in raging against how bad it all looked. I know some people think it won’t have any retroactive impact on the first game because they’re separate games, but it doesn’t always work like that. The hype level of upcoming games is like a water level for the entire series that brings everything up or down with it. We’ve seen it most notably with Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Metal Gear Solid 4 back in the day, but it happens to lesser degrees with other franchises.

So yeah, Dark Souls still wins, but now it’s just a matter of figuring out how much extra damage The Last of Us takes. Before all of this, I would’ve taken Dark Souls to get 55% max here, but now I could see it being upwards of 60% unless the reaction really is THAT extreme. I’ll temper my expectations and hope this doesn’t just nuke the lower half of the division in the X-Stats!

Leonhart’s Vote: The Last of Us

Leonhart’s Prediction: Dark Souls with 56.29%

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Kleenex’s Analysis

Like the two matches yesterday, I don’t think there’s much debate going into this one at this point. One of these games has clearly looked better than the other through the first three rounds of this contest, and The Last of Us even has the baggage of the sequel leaks to deal with now. I don’t know if that really moves the needle a ton - the game was already going to lose, so maybe it loses by another percent or two more, I dunno. Dark Souls definitely has the capability of playing spoiler in the upcoming rounds, so keep an eye on how well it does here because Skyrim (or…?!) has definitely looked vulnerable so far.

Kleenex’s Prediction: Dark Souls with 57.75%

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Guest’s Analysis – Luster Soldier

Pre-contest, I took The Last of Us to win its division, but that now looks like a bad pick based on the match results we've seen so far. The Last of Us has not looked great in this contest, most notably with its underperformance against Diablo III. Though it didn't look great against Crusader Kings II either, after considering that Dark Souls had a better round 1 performance on an opponent that should be stronger than Crusader Kings II.

Speaking of The Last of Us, that series has had a rough 2 weeks recently. Major spoiler leaks for the The Last of Us Part II came from a employee who worked on the game. The leaks have the potential to really sour a lot of people on the series in general, and that could have a carry over effect on TLoU's strength in this upcoming match. This was already looking like a 54-57% win for Dark Souls before the leaks happened. Since the leaks are still very fresh in the minds of voters, it could result in some backlash against TLoU that pushes the final percentage into the 57-60% range instead.

Luster Soldier's Bracket: The Last of Us

Luster Soldier's Second Chance Bracket: Dark Souls

Luster Soldier's Prediction: Dark Souls - 57.47%
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Crew Consensus: The Last we see of The Last of Us

I'll take the low prediction here

Round 4 – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim vs. Pokemon HeartGold / SoulSilver Version

Moltar’s Analysis

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Round 1 – 84.00% vs. Subnautica
Round 2 – 74.98% vs. Journey
Round 3 – 60.90% vs. Mario Kart 8

Pokemon HeartGold / SoulSilver Version
Round 1 – 81.96% vs. Night in the Woods
Round 2 – 71.97% vs. Rayman Legends
Round 3 – 51.87% vs. NieR: Automata

Alright Skyrim it’s getting pretty hard to defend taking you deep in this bracket. Failing to get the tripling on Journey wasn’t impressive, and 61% on Mario Kart also doesn’t look great. Is it enough to beat a neutered Pokemon G/S tho?

If Nier had been crushed last round I’d say Pokemon has a real good shot at the upset, but I kind of soured on Nier after its Round 2 performance and don’t think it’s as strong as I hoped it would be. Pokemon also hasn’t put up any other performances that would put it on the level of G/S in 2015.

Speaking of games that aren’t as strong as I’d hope, going back to Skyrim, these western games haven’t been able to go big on Nintendo. Pokemon should do considerably better than MK8 as well. Therefore, I expect this to be somewhat close, but not match-threatening close. I’ve been overestimating both these games this entire contest so what’s a result where both games look kinda bad….hmmm.

Moltar’s Bracket: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Moltar’s Prediction: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – 55%

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transience’s Analysis

Pokemon scares me. I'm not really worried about Skyrim's strength - I think it's fine, maybe a little underwhelming but nothing overly concerning unless you're comparing it to Witcher 3 who's been looking great all contest. But if I had to pick one opponent to scare Skyrim before then, it wouldn't be Dark Souls. It'd be Pokemon.

Pokemon didn't kill Nier, but I think a lot of Nier. I think it might be up there with the Xenoblades of the world. Pokemon is right up this site's alley, of course, and if Skyrim falters, Pokemon could take advantage. In fact, the early vote here -- I don't need to repeat myself.

Call it Pokefear if you want. If Skyrim gets above 55, I'll think it still has a shot at Witcher, albeit an outside one. And if it goes higher, either I've misjudged Pokemon or we're in for a fight.

transience's prediction: Skyrim with 52.57%

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Leonhart’s Analysis

Skyrim has routinely underperformed in every match, and now I’m sure there are some questioning whether it’ll drop this match to Pokemon outright. I’m still not too worried about that. It’s hard to argue that Skyrim hasn’t weakened over the last five years (or even the last couple years. It lost ground to Persona 5 in that “What is your favorite 5 game?” poll the other day), but I’d still be kind of surprised if it actually lost. I have a hard time thinking it’s not still a top ten game in this contest at worst, and losing to Pokemon would basically mean it isn’t anymore.

Of course, Pokemon loves to be that plucky little underdog, so I can’t entirely rule out the possibility of it winning. Still, as much respect as I have for its strength, I have a hard time envisioning NieR: Automata being able to beat Skyrim. That’s what keeps me from thinking Pokemon will win this more than anything. I think it’ll put a big scare into Skyrim with the early vote (because Board 8 never gets tired of voting for Pokemon), but it’ll eventually right the ship and pull away for a comfortable, if not unimpressive, win.

Leonhart’s Vote: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Leonhart’s Prediction: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with 54.05%
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Kleenex’s Analysis

Much like last round, I hate this match. If a goddamn Pokemon game knocks out two of my top 3 games this decade in consecutive rounds, I’m going to be...well about as irked as I’m willing to get with an internet popularity contest. Skyrim has definitely had some issues the past few rounds - extremely slow starts causing it to not hit the lofty goals that it had set for itself pre-contest. Sound familiar? I’m convinced Skyrim is the Final Fantasy 7 of this contest. It looks like it struggles against games that it should have no problem with, but when push comes to shove, it gets the job done anyway. The second half of that has yet to be proven, but I think it’ll do it today. I think you need to be really generous to NieR (or really dis...generous to Skyrim) in order to have Pokemon win today. That’s not to say it’s not possible, Pokemon has definitely been known to ruin everything in the past and it’s totally capable of doing it again, but I’m predicting, and hoping, that Skyrim is just a bit out of its reach. The first hour or so of this match is gonna be something, though.

Kleenex’s Prediction: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with 52%

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Guest’s Analysis – ctes

Another round and another chance for people to mock Skyrim. I don't see Skyrim losing here unless some major rally gets traction, but there's probably no way it comes out of the match looking impressive in the eyes of most. Pokemon is the perfect opponent to not let it do that. I do think Witcher beats Skyrim without much worrying, but Witcher has certainly had better opponents to show off against, likely causing three
major beatdowns because of SFF and beating Galaxy which was never very strong, but just isn't in a contest setting that highlights it. Meanwhile Skyrim gets Journey, Mario Kart and Pokemon, which are all
vastly different from it and can basically only make it look bad. On top of that, the former two were in a previous contest where they were likely significantly weaker than now, but that's not obvious so Skyrim
will still look bad. Oh, and Subnautica is so weak that there's not much to tell from that match, other than that Bethesda backlash prevents the highest of percentages.

Skyrim will win though. It's like it has taken the role has FFVII in standard contests. It wont look godly, but it'll get where it's supposed to. That's getting past HGSS as well. Now, I fully expect HGSS to look good going out though and it'll probably rally itself some percentages as well. It's probably among the easiest Pokemon games to rally for because it's respected by the ones who only played the first gens and hardcore fans alike, and we know by now being a remake isn't any disadvantage. Next to this match we have Dark Souls likely exposing The Last of Us being weak and walking into the top 8 as a big favorite, but it seriously wouldn't surprise me at all if Skyrim outdid its percentage from today in the next round.

If I'm wrong and Pokemon screws me over for the billionth time, I'm ready to accept it for once. I mean, f*** Charizard for beating my favorite Nintendo character due to the release of the games in this match, f*** Mewtwo, Squirtle and Pikachu for knocking out like all my favorite characters in 2013, f*** RBY for going beserk as I actually predicted due to other rallies, and f*** Pikachu again for initially knocking out Pokemon Slayer Mega Man but as at least he reclaimed that title. But! While I hate the characters doing that well, if HGSS, one of my favorite Pokemon games wants to do damage it isn't supposed to, I wont be annoyed, they're good games.

Just wanted to get that out there, I can't see it happening.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 53.48%
Pokemon HeartGold / SoulSilver Version - 46.52%

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Crew Consensus: Skyrim makes Pokemon faint

man what were the odds pre-contest that the highest Skyrim prediction here would be 55%

Skyrim match gonna prove MK8 almost as strong as HGSS

I have Skyrim getting 55% in my Second Chance Bracket too!

Mac Arrowny posted...

Skyrim match gonna prove MK8 almost as strong as HGSS

I'd be okay with that

here comes the crew curse

Arti posted...

here comes the crew curse

I would not be okay with that

Optics are gonna be bad for both 1 seeds today no matter what. I said there was only one match left in bracket after Smash/Mario I thought would be interesting and that's DkS/Skyrim.

If Skyrim goes low that's bad, but I wouldn't be surprised whatsoever to find out that Pokemon's half of the Division was fraudulent and it does pretty well... and I still would not be convinced it's where it needs to be.

Meanwhile Dark Souls can trash Last of Us and it might not mean anything, or it can do as expected based on the stats and people will say that's bad because they expect TLOU to have taken a massive hit.

These games are in pretty awkward spots.

Which contest had the stronger field between this and the first GOTD? Probably the latter overall, but it feels like there's more space between the elites and the fodder this time around.

I made a lot of xstat calcs for this one, but my favorite one runs it through Bayonetta and Journey from 2015, where Pokemon wins by 51%.

Now, which one do you think should have raised more, Bayonetta or Journey?

It's not a big argument, but it makes me feel Pokemon has a real chance here.

That said this is assuming Skyrim's result on Journey is transitive and not just the result of FF7-like anti-voting like others have described.

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Which contest had the stronger field between this and the first GOTD? Probably the latter overall, but it feels like there's more space between the elites and the fodder this time around.

The bottom of the field is definitely way weaker.

How many games in this contest would you take over Kingdom Hearts II? It finished 16th in 2010 and it was the weakest game to still be worth 40% on Majora's Mask.

It feels like the number of games that get singled out as "Game of the Decade" is smaller in the 2010s than the 2000s. Could that reflect something about the respective decades generally felt to people?

LeonhartFour posted...

man what were the odds pre-contest that the highest Skyrim prediction here would be 55%

Not too different from what I picked in my Second Chance bracket, which was 54%. But it's quite possible that HGSS is a lot closer to MK8 than to Skyrim.

whew I think Skyrim is okay

and Dark Souls sucks

Yeah, I wasn't actually expecting it to be ahead at the freeze