Retirement thread, Season 49

[OblivionKnight]

Zeon not in is VERY random.  >_>  But he was a post-ranking, IIRC, so...

[Mad Fnorder]

I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone- a vote for No Freya is a vote for justice.

Paid for by the citizens against characters with four forms, all stupid.

[superaielman]

Rohde may have plot, but so did Kisara of S5 fame. We didn't rank her for good reasons (Boring/weak fighter). I don't think the plot justifies keeping him.  I can bite on say a Sheela, but Rohde has zero going for him as a rnak to me.

Zeon... you'd have to PM Cranbud to be sure, but he may have considered him too strong for the RPGP? I remember him making a bonus match on the boards about Zeon's entire body versus Indaleico on the first day of the RPGP boards in '02.  We ranked him after S7.

[Ayra]

Okay... in that case I'm switching my Keep vote from Rohde to Sheela then

[Luther Lansfeld]

Rohde is plot important and represents a ranged character as well, since as is we are booting all of those. I'm not sure if I've heard anyone say why they want to keep the devils but not their bosses though. <_<

[Dark Holy Elf]

Bosses? Who are you referring to besides Zeon?

Anyway, re Zeon, it's because Zeon seems ill-suited to the DL. He's pretty much just an immobile disembodied head. I don't really mind keeping him, but he clearly seems to fit the DL less well than his underlings. A less natural rank, if that makes sense? Then there's the fact that some of the devils, at least, get more screentime. You hear plenty about Zeon, and see him a bit when he has Galam possessed, I guess, but the Devils are just so much more present, harrying your party repeatedly (or joining it in one case!). Finally, Zeon has a bit of a respect-split, I think: there are people who think he's an excellent Godlike because hey, 2.5x Odd Eye's HP! And there are the people who see him as Heavy while Odd Eye hangs out fine in Godlike and Geshp is hyped for an upgrade (yo). I'm not saying WE MUST BOOT ZEON, but if you had to only keep one boss from the game, surely that one would be Odd Eye, not Zeon. Up that number to two, and again I'd pass over Zeon, picking Geshp.

Zeon's probably around the fifth I'd rank. I just drew the line between five and four because ranking all of the Greater Devils is an elegant solution, and they're entirely problem-free ranks, which is good for a weaker draw. It helps that Zalbard, the one of the four I remember least for personality reasons, is also a former champ, which ties me to keeping him.

Rohde may have plot, but so did Kisara of S5 fame. We didn't rank her for good reasons (Boring/weak fighter).

Not really comparable. Kisara's a runless mage. Rohde's not very strong because he loses his big advantage from in-game, range, but at least his skillset is the same. He's not very exciting (tanky archer!), but at least his translation is logical.

Someone like Dinn is probably a better equivalent (modest plot, tanky, dull). Now, in general I am bigger on S5 than SF2 as a DL game for a number of reasons, so I am fine with ranking Dinn and not keeping Rohde, but there's a reason Rohde has attracted the Keep votes he has.

[Vortex Infinitum]

AtL4 Bebedora - Boot.
Baldur's Gate cast (Imoen, Edwin, Viconia, Minsc, Jaheira) - Boot.
Shining Force 1 (Entire cast besides Max and Jogurt) - Abstain.
Shining Force 2 (Entire cast besides Peter, Odd Eye, Bowie) - Abstain.
Tales of Eternia secondary characters - Boot Ras, Abstain on Chat and Shizel, Keep the Max.
VPs Freya - Boot.

[Nephrite]

This should be my last modification, but I added Anri to the keep list for ShF1 and Sheela to the Keep list of ShF2.

[superaielman]

This closes tonight, get your votes in soon.

[superaielman]

Not really comparable. Kisara's a runless mage. Rohde's not very strong because he loses his big advantage from in-game, range, but at least his skillset is the same. He's not very exciting (tanky archer!), but at least his translation is logical.

Someone like Dinn is probably a better equivalent (modest plot, tanky, dull). Now, in general I am bigger on S5 than SF2 as a DL game for a number of reasons, so I am fine with ranking Dinn and not keeping Rohde, but there's a reason Rohde has attracted the Keep votes he has.

Dinn's a good deal more interesting than Rohde. Doesn't suck/can wall elements/etc, but some those are S5 related. Rohde being a boring one dimensional fighter from a game that's draw below 40% of late strikes me as a extremely good reason to toss him, plot or not. SF being a low interest game in the DL period just compounds the problem.

[Luther Lansfeld]

What, did it draw below 40% once or something? That doesn't qualify as any type of statistical comparison to speak of. Even taking the last -5- seasons (which is not even a great sampling) the draw is 49%, above 15 games. So trying to use sensationalism to prove your point isn't cutting it.

[superaielman]

This season:

Kazin drew 39% versus FE9
Taya drew 35% versus P3
Odd Eye drew 54% against PS4, and 52% versus Ghaleon

Last season:

May drew 46% against S3
Zynk drew 53% against WA3

Geshp (46) drew:

63% versus FF7
57% versus Lufia 2
46% versus OB

Bowie (44) drew:

57% versus FF7

Peter (41) drew:

51% versus S3
46% versus SH2
51% versus FE8
59% verses FE7

Kiwi drew 49% against CC 87 votes
Kiwi drew 66% against FF4 89

Odd Eye (40) drew:

51% versus BoF1
44% versus DDS

Season 39:

Elric drew 43% versus S2
Taya drew 45% versus TotA

No real usable data before this point, the gap between Elric and Taya's season and the next fighter's is 5 seasons.  There are some oddities with this data- namely May/Zynk's week being the biggest one. I'm still not liking what I'm seeing at all from the bit characters and non bosses in general. Kiwi doing that well is nice, but FF4's a pretty perfect crossing.  SF2 is struggling the most with new games. That's a bad sign for me, means that our newer voters are not playing the game.  Drawing below 40% is extremely hard to do. It happens less than once a season on average, with only one game I can think of (BG) being able to do it on a regular basis.  Even Brig/ToE have avoided that one over the years. The PS3/360 porting will help SF2, as will the attention it gets/booting some of the really awful (hi Taya) fighters from the game.  Anna did draw below 40% this season versus Dis2, but managed to win the fight.

Draws below SF2, as of S39, my cutoff point for the aforementioned data:


76   VH   5   50.93%   0.00%   FE7, FFT, LoD, Suikos
77   Pers2   3   50.81%   66.67%   FF4, S3, SO2
78   ToD   9   50.79%   44.44%   BGs, DDS, FE8, FE9, S2, S3, S5, TotA
79   OB   14   50.58%   50.00%   CT, FE8, FE9, FF4, G1, G2, G3, PKMN, PS2, SF2, SH1, SH3, Suikos, WA
80   DW4   10   50.16%   20.00%   AtLC, CC, Disgaea, FF6, G2, G3, PKMN, SH3, XG
81   BoF5   8   50.02%   75.00%   GS, Lunar2, Pers3, S1, S3, SD3, WA, WA3
82   Pers   8   49.67%   62.50%   BoF1, BoFs, DQ8, G3, S2, SHs, Saga, WA
83   EB   2   49.48%   0.00%   AtLC, SD3
84   PS2   10   48.35%   50.00%   CT, DDS, Disgaea2, FF5, Lunar2, OB, S3, SH2, SH3, SO2
85   Lufia1   1   48.35%   0.00%   LoD
86   LoL2   6   48.02%   33.33%   FE7, FF9, PSs, SH2, SH3, TotA
87   LoL   2   47.74%   0.00%   G1, G2
88   AtL4   6   46.70%   50.00%   FE8, G2, Lufias, PS4, Pers3, VP1
89   ToE   7   45.88%   28.57%   DQ8, FE7, LoD, Lufia2, S4, SoA, Suikos
90   BGs   6   43.96%   50.00%   FE8, SO2, Suikos, ToD, TotA, VP1
91   Brig   2   42.73%   0.00%   LoD, WA

AtL4's has lost people, Pers is a FW game and is getting a remake, Pers2 has lost people, BGs is gone, ToE is losing people, Brig probably should go. Brig/EB/LoL/Lufia 1 have very small sample sizes.  DW4 would have been retired two years if not for the SE remake. That leaves... PS2, VH, LoL2, OB, ToD, BoF5. BoF5 bosses are a mess and probably shouldn't have been ranked, like with SF2 the game has a noticeable in cast vote/interest/ability to win split.  OB could stand to lose a few PC's but does well on the interest/memorability front besides for Norn/Aisha. ToD's almost always been tolerable in spite of the bad drawing thanks to low cast size and generally not robbing one way or the other. LoL2 hasn't worked out as well as we've liked, but is on the opposite end for memorability and fan interest of SF2. (It's problems are more related to MMXCM in the ranking topic.) VH didn't work out as we would've liked. My fault on that one.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Results:

Arc the Lad 4:
Bebedora 23-3 88% Retire

Baldur's Gate 2:
Edwin Jaheira, Viconia 23-1 96% Retire
Imoen 20-6 77% Retire
Minsc 20-9 69% Retire

Shining Force:
Gort 27-2 93% Retire
Alef, Gong 26-2 93% Retire
Guntz 25-3 89% Retire
Balbaroy 24-4 86% Retire
Zylo 24-5 83% Retire
Lowe 22-6 79% Retire
Bleu 21-7 75% Retire
Tao 17-11 61% Keep
Ramladu 17-12 59% Keep
Anri 16-12 57% Keep
Mishaela 16-13 55% Keep
Mae 13-12 52% Keep
Kane 13-14 48% Keep
Domingo 11-15 42% Keep
Darksol 11-16 41% Keep

Shining Force 2:
Luke 25-2 93% Retire
Chaz, Elric, Galam, Zynk 24-2 92% Retire
Gerhalt, May 24-3 89% Retire
Kiwi 21-5 81% Retire
Lemon 19-6 76% Retire
Rohde, Taya 20-7 74% Retire
Jaha 18-8 69% Retire
Sheela 17-9 65% Keep
Chester 17-10 63% Keep
Zeon 15-10 60% Keep
Kazin 16-11 59% Keep
Cameela, Geshp, Zalbard 13-13 50% Keep
Sarah 8-19 30% Keep
Slade 6-21 22% Keep

Tales of Eternia:
Rassius 24-3 89% Retire
Shizel 16-5 76% Retire
Chat 17-8 68% Retire
Max 9-17 35% Keep

Valkyrie Profile series:
Freya 15-14 52% Keep

Everyone listed in red is retired from the DL and can not be nominated in Season 50 or beyond. Thanks for everyone who participated, and kept the debate civil.