Season 44 rankings: Making the final cut.

[Grefter]

This has come up before even internally Andemon for how to handle this.  The idea of ranking earlier always comes up and if it was doable is an awesome idea.

What it ultimately comes down to though is being certain that the site can run.  We could rank everything new as it comes out, but then we would be ranking things fairly blindly, trusting a very few number of people that have played the game to get it right.

Then you get to the writing.  There is no passion in writing for a game you have not played, there is no way you are going to even get anything close to the character right, you have no idea what the character can even do.  Writing staff are the life blood of the DL, you can't put any more pressure on it than there already is.  If you rank a game with what 3 writers or something like you would for some stuff at release you are looking at massive, massive writer burn out.

You can argue ranking games will bring in the writers, but we will need the writers there to get the matches to get the games the exposure on site to show people that we have them there to get the writers for them.  It is a circular argument.

The DL is stagnant and slow, but it is currently sitting in a state that can move on slowly and consistently.  It is a comittee, it is going to be slow.

Your points are of course valid here it is stuff we have pretty much all looked over at one point or another, but one can't happen without the other and with one the site will barely function.

Edit - And man we even just went through the same set of circular arguments in Chat even.

[Monkeyfinger]

I feel like I'm strolling into the bowels of hell with this statement but Mass Effect doesn't feel any more out of place in the format than other genre straddlers like the Star Ocean series.

[Grefter]

Any actual figures to work with in Mass Effect?  Cause as far as I can tell the systems are about as transparent as Kingdom Hearts.

[superaielman]

http://www.rpgdl.com/vote_graph.php Will help with this.

Right, those were huge releases. Nonetheless, I have great difficulty finding gamers who have played them AND remember them well enough to vote.

However, another point worth noting in these semifinals is that, surprisingly, FE and FF fanbases do not seem to overlap much.
I tried to sell this site on the FE forum, but most folks there hadn't played anything beyond strategy RPGs, with the notable exception of FFX.

Attracting voters who can vote on enough games to stick around has always been a problem.  A lot of RPG gamers stick to one era or one type of game and.. no matter what we do, keeping that kind of voter around is always going to be a losing fight. The DL's focus on fairly honest voting doesn't help either- you can love the concept to death but if you've only playd SRPGs and maybe a few FF games, your voting is going to suck massively.

I'd say that it's been out of balance for a while.
The vote-totals haven't been this low since... season 14? Hopefully I miscounted, but that's what it seems like.
According to the tracking sites, DL still gets almost as many page hits as before. I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Either there's an increasing amount of visitors who don't bother to vote -- or simply can't. If it's the latter, then I'd say that it's definitely time to consider pruning the roster; or at least to exhibit some restrain when nominating older games.

One reason totals are down is that we lost our board 8 weekly topic. And yeah, not arguing otherwise.

The low amount of voters also means that the numbers can no longer be considered statistically accurate. The votes are skewed towards the regulars, and if those totals are used to determine which game to rank, then the rift will only keep on growing. Other sources such as sales and popularity should be used instead when determining if the game is ready to rank. If there are enough writers internally and the game sold well, then I think it should be considered ready.

Getting writers/internal is almost always the hardest roadblock for a game being ranked.  We have to have enough or else our rankings end up schewed/there's a good chance we get some bad results on site. The only example I have of that stat going in the other direction is XS3, which is a special case. (Largely disliked, last game in a series)

P3 for instance: now would've been the perfect time to rank it.
By not ranking it before P4 is released, we'll miss out on a potential influx of voters and likely some new writers[1]. Sequels always generate a surge of renewed interest towards the series, and if P3 had been ranked by the time that P4 is released it would've been easy to "sell" this site to the fanbase. If it's not ranked by that time, then there's nothing to sell.

If we rank P3 next time (Looking likely) it'll be ranked  in september. P4 is released in December. If we wait a period after that we'll rank it in december, when the game comes out in the states. Either way, the timing will be better then.

Dis2/FE9 weren't new, but the ranking freeze last year had to happen. We just now are getting games again that are rankable.  We ranked so many games last year that we didn't have much of a choice. Oh well.

And if you need any help with recruiting/translation stuff, come to me or Tonfa for that.

Anyway, PC and console gamers seem to overlap more and more. Hardly anyone owns just one console these days, most serious gamers own a PC and several consoles -- and play RPGs on all of them. I'd recommend keeping an eye on that market, and ranking the next big-name rankable from there.

We've tried this more than once. There is almost zero crossover in the actual internal group for PC games, and it doesn't look much better with the voters. KotOR was beyond pathetic in NR, and it's the best of the bunch there. I've pretty much given up on making PC games viable, no matter how hard it's pushed they can't draw worth a damn or gain much internal headway.

[Grefter]

Also just to say a thing that was missed also.  We do take into account the external votes capable.  That is the primary reason shit has ever got the boot.  Games don't get in if the internal voting capacity is good enough.  They certainly don't stay in if the external voting capacity is horrible.  We do also try to take it into account while we are ranking as well.

See the complete and total lack of any push to rank Gust games or half of the more obscure stuff people have been playing this last year.  With how open the DL is to lending stuff around we could get the internal up if we tried, but the games are so niche that they just don't register, so nothing. 

[Pyro]

Disgaea 2:

Played it: Yes I've played it (have not quite beaten it yet.)
Rank it: I'll give a yes for the permanent plot PCs and 'Zenon'. No to others. Abstain on Axel.
Reasoning: I don't really like the game in the DL, although we have a good topic to refer to in case we need to figure out damage/evade/whatever. It seems to be popular for some though, and appeasing some of the N1 fans (our Admin included) is a good thing.

Fire Emblem 9:

Played it: Played it and enjoyed it greatly.
Rank it? Yes... to a small number. Greil Mercs (including Mist/Rolf, excluding Shinon/Gatrie), Elincia, Tibarn, Mia (Forced joining early works for me), Volke (PLOT RELEVANT), Jill (Healthy amount of plot here), and Ena (Lot of plot here). No to everyone else.

Reasoning: If we are going to rank it I'd prefer it not be a HUGE rank. This, I think, works.

[Dunefar]

Disgaea 2:

Played it: Yes. Beaten it.
Rank it: Yes.
Reasoning: It's borderline, but I'd like to rank something this period to avoid total stagnation. This is good enough.

Fire Emblem 9:

Played it: No.
Rank it?: FW Ike is yes. Everyone else is no.
Reasoning: It's an FE game without it's biggest advantage; good votership and writing. PASS.

[superaielman]

Oh yeah: As an addition, if anyone needs any help explaining things/recruitment/bringing new people to the DL, contact me. I'm always glad to help with that.

See the complete and total lack of any push to rank Gust games or half of the more obscure stuff people have been playin[qg this last year.  With how open the DL is to lending stuff around we could get the internal up if we tried, but the games are so niche that they just don't register, so nothing.

In fairness, a couple of the gust games get some talk. But the baseline there for drawing/internal/external is pretty appalling. And one of the most popular here (AT) isn't very rankable.

[Grefter]

Yeah, point was people are playing games, we aren't sitting here doing nothing out of spite or anything.  We just as a group are tending towards more obscure stuff that we KNOW isn't really rankable and aren't pushing for it.

[Lord Ephraim]

* Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Prec... -  Well......  It is rankable I guess.  Who wants to touch this?  I liked it and had fun.  But seriously?

Pretty sure I saw this on Xbox LIVE Arcade, so it's not really PC only.

[Grefter]

It isn't PC exclusive no, but either is pretty much everything else discussed in the "PC" ranking pool.  Most of them also came out on XBox something at some point.

[Nitori]

Disgaea 2

Yes.
Yes. Good way to get moving after a long break, this is a pretty simple and nonoffensive idea.
Rank PCs/Axel/Zenon. Abstain on Fubuki. No to everything else.

Fire Emblem 9

No.
Yes to Ike and Mist, abstain on everything else. Initial reaction is argh FE, but FE4's skills are cool and FE9 has those so I assume this will be less boring.

[Niu]

No to both

[TranceHime]

Disgaea 2

1) Yeah, finished, did post-game, yadda yadda
2) Yeah, I agree that this should be ranked. Doesn't seem to be all that bad, and there should be something to break out of the standstill. Rank PCs/Axel/Zenon, and that's it. No to everything else (haha that includes you too Fubuki).

FE9

1) Played it, yeah.
2) Do I think FE9 should be ranked? Eh... I'm largely sitting on the fence for this one. Biggest concern for me over here is draws, and also votership... Hrm. I honestly don't know, though I'm rather leaning towards "no." However, if this does get accepted, here's who I think should be ranked:
Ike, Mist, Soren, Titania, Elincia, Marcia, Nephenee, Boyd, Rhys, Mia, Tibarn, Naesala. Abstain on the other PCs and definitely no to bosses.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Actually Disgaea 2's votership is pretty similar to FE9's, so ranking Disgaea 2 and then voting no to FE9 on accounts of that is kind of fallacious. FE9 drew worse in NR but also had SIGNIFICANTLY worse opponents on average. Both of them drew ~60% against FFs (FF8 being a slightly worse draw than FFT, FF8 is the worst drawing main FF IIRC).

[superaielman]

Yeah, FE9 stepped it up some in the last NR season, which I'm glad for.

[Luther Lansfeld]

The season Tibarn was in, his opponents were pretty bottom of the barrel. XS3, LaL, MMXCM, and... OS? (Naturally, funny to note that XS3 was by far the worst of the four, which is why we should rank LaL never rank XS3.) Mist was against... some BoF2 boss I don't remember (now there's a shock)... don't remember the rest though.

[superaielman]

It generally drew poorly even by those standards though. I think it just needed that last internal kick in the ass to get up to par myself.

[Luther Lansfeld]

It's hard for me to gauge exactly what its drawing capabilities are from those numbers, since 50~ voters means that variance can be pretty high in general, especially with lower voting draws vs. mediocre ones.

[superaielman]

27% is still pretty epic. It also drew under 50% against BoF2 that season. Just..was not ready. FE9 is a game I expect to draw better in the DL proper, as our casual fans are more likely to have played it than us. All the GC/non DL core system ranks tend to do that though.

[OblivionKnight]

Since I was prodded into posting more information last night...

I think both games have grown a good deal and have decent potential for further growth (not as good as P3, but still respectable).  FE9 has FE10 to support it, and D2 has...well, D3 and a large portion of other related games (D1 being popular, and then all the other NI stuff).  I can still see saying no to both, however (and it's interesting that this will be a close race here).  FE9 does have potential votesplit (which I personally don't see as a significant problem, but some might), but waiting until FE10 is ready means we might be waiting another 2 years.  While this might make some people happy (whether it's for solidfying draw or just not having the game ranked), this is a stupid thing to do because of the support the game has been getting.  Just FWing Ike...eh.  There's still some votesplit there between the forms, though both are in the Heavy range (though FE10 version has far more potential plot items, such as Urvan and Pavise).  Also, just ranking Ike...doesn't work much now.  Ike's been in NR, and received 34 votes (don't know the average) in S6.  Unless we got exceptionally insane votes that season (like...70), he's 50%+, which is similar to everyone else.  The game has support to be ranked, and no one had put in submissions for just Ike, which we do get for other characters (Jack, Alucard, Ash, etc.).  That strikes me as pretty spot-on that people want the whole game in (well, the game in general).  Saying no to the game is fine, but to wait until FE10 is to be ranked (with just a FW Ike already in) means that Ike sits alone for 2 years or so, and then there's another surge of interest, and then we go through the same thing again with Micaiah.  Or not.  But the point I'm trying to make here is that there is support for the game as a whole - I'm seeing this as we are voting for whether the game as a whole is ready, because that has been suggested, not just one person.  So if the game is not ready to you, vote no.  If it is ready, vote yes.  Jumping to just one person means that FE9 will be brought up every season now, or even worse, ignored because of this.  That's going to hurt the exterior perception a good deal, which I really, really do not want to have happen.  If it's brought up every season, it annoys people like pokemon did, and I don't want to see people continuously shooting it down every single season it gets to the second stage.  That's just annoying and ridiculous, but better than it being forgotten once there's support for it on the table.  Generally, I don't highly support a FW Ike when there's no significant advantage to doing it over ranking a portion of the game or not.  Votesplit will exist no matter what you do - that's natural.  If someone has only played FE10, they will vote on the FE10 forms of the characters so they can vote.  If someone sees the FE10 (or SSBB) form as better for Ike?  They'll vote on that.  This happens for every character in the DL, for the most part, that has these issues.  

Ok, rant mostly over.  I have no problem with voting no on the game, but I don't think just voting for one person will help in the long run, especially when there's no major advantage I can see over just ranking the rest of the game.

[Luther Lansfeld]

That was a really long post, but I pretty much agree with you. Personally I am not bothered by FEs in the DL, but I think that voting a game down because you don't like it in the DL or just don't like is really short-sighted and should be avoided. We aren't just catering to a small group of people who don't like the game, we are trying to draw and interest fans beyond our original scope. People who don't care about duelling worth or whatever (which is the same as me!) but just want to see someone they like get in.

I'm personally not sure if either game draws well enough for me. But I will either vote yes to both or no to both at the end of the day, since they draw very similarly, are fairly fan-demanded games, and the writers aren't great but passable.

[OblivionKnight]

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.  It's odd people are agreeing with me here - somewhat scary actually >_>

[Luther Lansfeld]

Haha. I still don't agree with you 51 ranked duellers list though. <_<

[OblivionKnight]

Fine, I'll take Largo out of the list.  Is 50 more reasonable?

And you ignored the 26 people in the smallened list!  That's acceptable!