Board 8 > Game of the Decade: 2010-2019 Contest Analysis Crew - Part 6

(+) Yeah! (+)

can't wait for the second update
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I think Skyrim is in the drivers seat but who knows

Im not sure if Witcher rises to 60% or just 55%

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I'd guess somewhere in the middle
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I had Witcher 60% and Skyrim at 55%. Fuck off DS.

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that third update is always a motherfucker

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absolutely disgusting

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I'm not too worried about Skyrim unless this persists past the first couple hours. Dark Souls is always a monster for those first few updates after the freeze, for whatever the reason.
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@Master_Moltar

What are you planning to do with guest sign-ups for the last 2 rounds of the contest? I know the sign-ups for the late rounds tend to be held in the actual Crew discussion topic instead of a separate sign-up topic. But we're less than 24 hours away from needing a guest for the next match.
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that is true, who wants it

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild vs. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate -

the other semi-final match is eligible to be signed up for as soon as the current ongoing matches end

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I guess it's to be expected that Witcher and Skyrim updates are tied at the hip. as Persona dies off, Skyrim rises

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild vs. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Luster Soldier

I'll sign-up for this one.
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Maybe I was wrong to say whatever wins between Skyrim and Dark Souls will do so comfortably

Witcher is at least starting to put some distance between it and P5. Whenever Skyrim looks like it's breaking away it gets yanked right back down.

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does Sonic 2 still beat Portal 2

that would make it stronger than Galaxy 2

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Leonhart4 posted...

does Sonic 2 still beat Portal 2

that would make it stronger than Galaxy 2

Who's to say Sonic 2 hasn't always been stronger?

I think setting Uncharted 2 = Uncharted 4 probably makes Sonic 2 look stronger than Galaxy 2 as well, and most would take UC2 > UC4?
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I mean, it might be! It would be weird to see though, even if we're talking about perhaps the strongest Sonic game against a middle of the road Mario game.

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transience posted...

I guess it's to be expected that Witcher and Skyrim updates are tied at the hip. as Persona dies off, Skyrim rises

As the matches wear on this is starting to become less of the case

Witcher is breaking away while Skyrim languishes in the 'it might not even win' zone. I know our natural impulse is to say Witcher and Skyrim share the same audience, but Dark Souls isn't a million miles away from those games.

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Previous Results: Zelda returns to form with a strong performance on ME2. Xenoblade manages to hold up well against Smash.

Crew Predictions: 115/122

Next Round Thoughts: Zelda vs Smash? Let me tell you about something called the Nintendo hierarchy...

Crew Prediction Challenge:

Moltar: 114
Kleenex: 114
Leonhart: 109
transience: 108
Guest: 99

Crew Accuracy Challenge: Moltar gets the point for Zelda and Kleenex gets the point for Smash.

Moltar: 35
transience: 26
Kleenex: 20
Leonhart: 19
Guest: 18 (spooky96, Hbthebattle (3), Black Turtle, ctes (2), MetalmindStats (2), MechanicalWall (2), Kotetsu, pjbasis, Nintendogs, SuperNiceDog, FFDragon, Sir Chris, DoctorJimmy)

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Moltar is a monster!! 35 accuracy wins

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Skyrim wait stop going up

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Skyrim keep going up but just a little

I'll try to at least tie for most guest points

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I just want to say that we've been spot on lately

crew curse not here

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I've noticed that at least at a glance, Skyrim and Witcher ARE moving in parallel now, much moreso than they were last night.

A quirk of trends or something to do with those small Persona rallies?

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The Mana Sword posted...

Skyrim wait stop going up

Keep going up both for Crew and Second Chance

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Round 6 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild vs. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Moltars Analysis

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Round 1 85.02% vs. The Outer Worlds
Round 2 84.86% vs. Halo: Reach
Round 3 80.25% vs. Final Fantasy XV
Round 4 70.22% vs. Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
Round 5 68.33% vs. Mass Effect 2

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Round 1 82.98% vs. Tekken 7
Round 2 64.06% vs. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Round 3 63.61% vs. Marvels Spider-Man
Round 4 55.94% vs. Super Mario Odyssey
Round 5 59.61% vs. Xenoblade Chronicles

Let us open our GameFAQs and turn to the Book of Nintendo, Chapter 20, Verse 6.

Zelda > Smash > Mario > Xenoblade > Fire Emblem

Praise be to the Nintendo Hierarchy.

The only question here is how much SFF Zelda is going to get on Smash. Considering this would probably be at best a 60/40 for it before that and these two games should be tied pretty closely with each other...this could be pretty ugly.

People just see Breath of the Wild as a transformative entry in the series while Smash is...just Smash. Thats not a bad thing as the Smash formula is a proven winner, but this Zelda game means so much more than just another Smash game. I think that among people that have played both, Zelda is going to stand out to them far more.

Moltars Bracket: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Moltars Prediction: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 67%

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transiences Analysis

I hate trying to predict big SFF matches. Zelda wins, but by how much? Take away SFF and this is probably about a 60/40 match - I think ME2 and Xenoblade are probably in the same general vicinity. Add in SFF and.. maybe a doubling?

I don't know what to think here. I know that I don't think a lot of Smash, and that Zelda is considered an all-time game while Smash is more of a fun diversion. It isn't a game you devote your life to like people seemed to treat Melee and Brawl. Breath of the Wild, on the other hand, has some true believers who think that it defined open world games for a decade to come. I won't be surprised if this pushes into the 70s, but I'm not going to pick it.

One interesting aspect is if there's any spillover from today's matches. Dark Souls, Persona, Witcher, Skyrim -- these are all RPGs. Zelda may not be a true RPG, but it's definitely more RPG-adjacent than Smash is. If we end up with a weird rally situation, Zelda's going to clean up. This site may be Zelda central, but I would say that it's disproportionately a Smash site moreso than it is a Zelda site. Other sites think super highly of Zelda while Smash is more of a fun distraction than a true game of the decade. Not here! I can't wait to get Smash out of this bracket.

transience's prediction: Zelda: Breath of the Wild with 68.99%

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Leonharts Analysis

This is what were spending one of only three one match per day opportunities on, huh? I honestly dont think theres too much to analyze here that will tell us anything about the final unless Smash Ultimate holds up way better than expected. Now I do expect Smash to resist getting absolutely crushed by SFF here. I think the fanbase being as broad and diverse as it is works to its benefit in that regard. Actually, now that I think about it, this is the first real time weve seen a Smash game face a clearly stronger Nintendo game in an SFF situation 1-on-1 (we saw Melee and Brawl have to contend with OoT in 4-ways in 2009 and they held up fairly well, for the most part), so that provides something worth paying attention to for us stat nerds.

So I guess the main question is how much stronger Breath of the Wild is than Smash Ultimate indirectly. Well, if you assume Mass Effect 2 = Xenoblade (and Smash isnt applying any SFF, which Id guess its pretty minor if there is any), Breath of the Wild wins around 60/40. Based on all weve seen so far, Id take Mass Effect 2 over Xenoblade with maybe around 55% max, which gives Zelda a pretty comfortable win, even before you factor in SFF.

Leonharts Vote: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Leonharts Prediction: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with 64.06%

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Kleenexs Analysis

For a semifinal match theres not much going on here. Zelda has looked like a monster every single round and its not about to let up now. Smash actually seemed somewhat vulnerable against Xenoblade, and while it never had any real shot today, things might end up getting pretty ugly if it turns out that division was a little overrated. Can Zelda make it to the finals laying down at least a doubling on every opponent it faces? Probably not, but I bet itll be close.

Kleenexs Prediction: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with 65%

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Guests Analysis Luster Soldier

This is the most unexciting BotW match of the contest as it's one of the few times we'll see SFF in this contest along with Smash/Mario and possibly Witcher/Skyrim. Plus, it also makes X-Stat comparisons between the first 4 divisions look kind of sketchy. Even more so for Division 3 and 4 which is likely behind 2 layers of SFF.

Predicting the amount of SFF that will happen in this match is rather tricky. Even a match like Link/Ganondorf in 2018 was being overpredicted in the amount of SFF that actually happened, and this was after most of us correctly assumed Link wasn't going to repeat the same level of performance from 2004. I still ended up predicting that match about 3% higher than the final result, even after going about 6% lower than the 2004 match. It's very clear that SFF in general has been much weaker than it used to be. BotW/Smash Ultimate will be much closer to Link/Mario than Link/Ganondorf in the amount of SFF that will actually happen.

The 2017 GotY polls could provide a rough ceiling for how high BotW can go. BotW got 67.12% directly on Mario Odyssey in the Switch GotY poll. I think that result may have been a slight overperformance for BotW since it came out nearly 8 months before Mario Odyssey, so BotW probably had a larger than normal playrate advantage by the time the GotY polls started. Smash Ultimate has since proven that it's stronger than Mario Odyssey, so you can narrow down the potential max for this match even more. I suspect Smash Ultimate resists the SFF better than Mario Odyssey as Smash fans may be more likely to be hardcore fans of their game who aren't as likely to switch their vote to BotW. Hardcore Mario fans aren't as common, so BotW should be able to SFF Mario games a bit harder than Smash games.

The amount of SFF will likely be in the range of 2 to 6 extra points of percentage, with the expected result somewhere in the 62-66% range. I think the result has more of a chance of being on the lower end of that range than the higher end.

Luster Soldier's Bracket and Second Chance Bracket: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Luster Soldier's Prediction: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 64.59%

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Crew Consensus: Zelda turns Smash into a spirit.

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we need a third place match to see where Smash lands

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transcience posted...

we need a third place match to see where Smash lands

Should we try asking SBAllen?

well probably get one.

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...Wait wait wait, am I reading that right? There was a huge TLoU2 leak just before the match...and everyone's convinced that it hurt TLoU? On the site where being announced for Brawl made a bunch of characters boost in 2007 and then Brawl actually coming out made them deboost in 2008? Where Lightning is worth 36% on Sonic in a true 1v1 before FFXIII is out in the US, and then can't even beat an LFF'd Donkey Kong, King of the Chokers, three years later? Where Cloud's only 1v1 loss to anyone other than Link was Mario on Super Mario Sunshine's release date, Charizard won a division because the final was on HGSS's release date, and Golden Sun upset GTA San Andreas on Dark Dawn's release date--note that two of these three games ended up as huge disappointments. Hype is far more powerful than actual games; these leaks must've made it out to be absolutely awful for that to backfire.

MechanicalWall posted...

That fanbase despises most things tbh

Weren't they the ones that started the Undertale rally though? I could've sworn the tumblr that started the Undertale movement was actually devoted to Dark Souls and we were wondering why they didn't rally that game instead.

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TsunamiXXVIII posted...

Hype is far more powerful than actual games; these leaks must've made it out to be absolutely awful for that to backfire.

Not to spoil anything but yeah, those leaks were abysmal for the game's reputation. If I had a PS4 and was interested in the series before, I wouldn't be anymore after seeing them.

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TsunamiXXVIII posted...

these leaks must've made it out to be absolutely awful for that to backfire.

They were.

Believe in Ultimate yet?

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All praise the strength of Spider-Man

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during the board vote? nope!

but even if this was 55/45, I would just chalk it up to rSFF. need a third place match.

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transcience posted...

during the board vote? nope!

but even if this was 55/45, I would just chalk it up to rSFF. need a third place match.

Must be nice to be able to dismiss all inconvenient results like that...!

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Spider-Man could win the entire contest and you'd still somehow find an excuse to say it's bad LOL.

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theres nothing out of line with not trusting matches in the Nintendo hierarchy across the board

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This feels a lot like Link/Mario 2010 with Link at 58.81% at the freeze, and then finished nearly 6% higher. Only difference here is that Smash's night vote is a lot worse than either Link or Mario.
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you guys are really hung up on spider man! I dont really think about it or care about it that much!

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transcience posted...

theres nothing out of line with not trusting matches in the Nintendo hierarchy across the board

It's pretty rare to find instances where the clearly weaker entrant actually overperformed though!

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this probably still ends in the low to mid 60s, Im not sure why I need to rely on it!

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I think we should wait until the board which has been pretty bad for Breath of the Wild.

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KamikazePotato posted...

I think we should wait until the board which has been pretty bad for Breath of the Wild.

Oh, I know. Smash probably won the board vote. It's just fun to poke at the Smash/Spidey bashers...!

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Oh.

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KamikazePotato posted...

I think we should wait until the board which has been pretty bad for Breath of the Wild.

*cough*

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KamikazePotato posted...

*cough*

I expected that update to be rough since Zelda was starting to go up right before the freeze but 5% might be the biggest jump on the second update this contest.

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WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Oh.

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gee I noticed these spider man posts seem to have gone away

(and it doesnt matter what this result is, good or bad, because its a SFF match. you know better!)

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transcience posted...

gee I noticed these spider man posts seem to have gone away

(and it doesnt matter what this result is, good or bad, because its a SFF match. you know better!)

Spider-Man is back!

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oh ya sling those webs baby

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And now Zelda is doing to Smash what Smash did to Spidey

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