Schwaumlaut
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2009
- Messages
- 135
UPDATED 5-27-2009 WITH THE COMPETITION (Midwest Circuit East #3)
These are matchup numbers based on results in the top 8 at tournaments with more than 25 entrants. We include more people for events with more than 50 people.
Yeah, not gonna worry about overall stats unless I get NSF funding or something.
TheKiest and I have started collecting data on how often a character beats another character in tournament matches in order to create an empirical matchup table. You probably notice two things about the charts above: the weird matchup numbers and the gigantic holes in the data. In order to fix these, WE NEED YOUR HELP. Our data currently come from only two central Ohio tournaments, so we have big blank spots because not every character gets played around here. Our data is also extremely skewed by a few very good players (e.g. Diddy's 100:0 matchup on Falco is mainly because ChamP loses to AlphaZealot). If you're willing to take note of who is beating whom, read on.
The basic idea is that if we record how often Marth beats Kirby, we can come up with a matchup ratio without resorting to judgment calls. There is one unavoidable judgment, however: which games we should include.
There are two ways to do this - one is to record every game played in a tournament, from top to bottom. On the plus side, this generates large amounts of data very quickly. Its major drawback, however, is that it necessarily includes a lot of incompetent players. While mitigated by the simple fact that better players will play more matches in a tournament, this flaw means that rather than revealing matchups based on near-optimal play, data collected by this method will tell us more about the community which plays a particular character and their overall ability. In practice, it's also a bit difficult to record every single match; Kiest and I have managed to get every match in pools recorded at a few ~30 person tournaments, but unless the TO governs with an iron fist, it's pretty tough to keep track of when matches finish. I tried doing this and it is not worth the trouble.
The other way to look at it is Ankoku's method, which only includes games played for 8th place and up. I think it's safe to say that people who make it to the Winner's Semifinals are reasonably competent, so data taken from this group of players will be closer to whatever figure would be generated by optimal play. The data is also easier to collect, since all you have to do is track down the top 8 players after the bracket and ask them how the sets that knocked them out went. The major drawback here, though, is that instead of ~200 data points for a 32 man bracket, you're looking at ~50 data points. This may seem like a lot until you realize that there are a little more than 1,300 matchups, due the size of the Brawl roster. Restricting the sample to people who place highly in tournaments will also tend to exclude lower tier characters from consideration since there simply won't be enough of them to collect data.
Bottom line is that if tournament organizers record which character won which matchups when updating their brackets, they can get the information without making a huge time investment. Collecting only 8th place and up is even easier. It is slightly more time consuming, though not by much, to keep two sets of records (one overall, and one for 8th+). So, TOs, if you'e willing to mark 2-6 tallies per set, we can collect a lot of good data. I've made some tables which TOs can use to record their data - you can get it as a spreadsheet from Google Docs, or I've made 200 dpi pngs which you can print instead. Kiest is graciously hosting some on the OUGA website, and I also have them in .xls and .pdf; if you'd like them in one of these formats, you can e-mail my gmail account, han.138
Once you've collected some data from a tournament, post your results here or PM or e-mail me. You can also catch me on AIM (ahab117).
Google Docs
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rRRq5qX9VjqXIifNTJmmZPg
Color PNGs
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Color-TO-sheets1.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Color-TO-sheets2.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Color-TO-sheets3.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Color-TO-sheets4.png
Grayscale PNGs
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Grayscale-TO-sheets1.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Grayscale-TO-sheets2.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Grayscale-TO-sheets3.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Grayscale-TO-sheets4.png
.xls spreadsheets
http://www.originalupholdersofthegamingarts.com/downloads/TOsheets.xls
Color PDF
http://www.originalupholdersofthegamingarts.com/downloads/ColorTOSheets.pdf
Grayscale PDF
http://www.originalupholdersofthegamingarts.com/downloads/GrayscaleTOsheets.pdf
Again, for this to work, we'll need as much data as we can get. Right now, we're only looking at data from the midwest, so the help we can get from the wider smash community will be crucial. Kiest said he'd put some of the TO files up on the OUGA website, as well, so keep an eye out for that. Thanks for your interest!
These are matchup numbers based on results in the top 8 at tournaments with more than 25 entrants. We include more people for events with more than 50 people.
Yeah, not gonna worry about overall stats unless I get NSF funding or something.
TheKiest and I have started collecting data on how often a character beats another character in tournament matches in order to create an empirical matchup table. You probably notice two things about the charts above: the weird matchup numbers and the gigantic holes in the data. In order to fix these, WE NEED YOUR HELP. Our data currently come from only two central Ohio tournaments, so we have big blank spots because not every character gets played around here. Our data is also extremely skewed by a few very good players (e.g. Diddy's 100:0 matchup on Falco is mainly because ChamP loses to AlphaZealot). If you're willing to take note of who is beating whom, read on.
The basic idea is that if we record how often Marth beats Kirby, we can come up with a matchup ratio without resorting to judgment calls. There is one unavoidable judgment, however: which games we should include.
There are two ways to do this - one is to record every game played in a tournament, from top to bottom. On the plus side, this generates large amounts of data very quickly. Its major drawback, however, is that it necessarily includes a lot of incompetent players. While mitigated by the simple fact that better players will play more matches in a tournament, this flaw means that rather than revealing matchups based on near-optimal play, data collected by this method will tell us more about the community which plays a particular character and their overall ability. In practice, it's also a bit difficult to record every single match; Kiest and I have managed to get every match in pools recorded at a few ~30 person tournaments, but unless the TO governs with an iron fist, it's pretty tough to keep track of when matches finish. I tried doing this and it is not worth the trouble.
The other way to look at it is Ankoku's method, which only includes games played for 8th place and up. I think it's safe to say that people who make it to the Winner's Semifinals are reasonably competent, so data taken from this group of players will be closer to whatever figure would be generated by optimal play. The data is also easier to collect, since all you have to do is track down the top 8 players after the bracket and ask them how the sets that knocked them out went. The major drawback here, though, is that instead of ~200 data points for a 32 man bracket, you're looking at ~50 data points. This may seem like a lot until you realize that there are a little more than 1,300 matchups, due the size of the Brawl roster. Restricting the sample to people who place highly in tournaments will also tend to exclude lower tier characters from consideration since there simply won't be enough of them to collect data.
Bottom line is that if tournament organizers record which character won which matchups when updating their brackets, they can get the information without making a huge time investment. Collecting only 8th place and up is even easier. It is slightly more time consuming, though not by much, to keep two sets of records (one overall, and one for 8th+). So, TOs, if you'e willing to mark 2-6 tallies per set, we can collect a lot of good data. I've made some tables which TOs can use to record their data - you can get it as a spreadsheet from Google Docs, or I've made 200 dpi pngs which you can print instead. Kiest is graciously hosting some on the OUGA website, and I also have them in .xls and .pdf; if you'd like them in one of these formats, you can e-mail my gmail account, han.138
Once you've collected some data from a tournament, post your results here or PM or e-mail me. You can also catch me on AIM (ahab117).
Google Docs
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rRRq5qX9VjqXIifNTJmmZPg
Color PNGs
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Color-TO-sheets1.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Color-TO-sheets2.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Color-TO-sheets3.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Color-TO-sheets4.png
Grayscale PNGs
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Grayscale-TO-sheets1.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Grayscale-TO-sheets2.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Grayscale-TO-sheets3.png
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m225/Schwaumlaut/Grayscale-TO-sheets4.png
.xls spreadsheets
http://www.originalupholdersofthegamingarts.com/downloads/TOsheets.xls
Color PDF
http://www.originalupholdersofthegamingarts.com/downloads/ColorTOSheets.pdf
Grayscale PDF
http://www.originalupholdersofthegamingarts.com/downloads/GrayscaleTOsheets.pdf
Again, for this to work, we'll need as much data as we can get. Right now, we're only looking at data from the midwest, so the help we can get from the wider smash community will be crucial. Kiest said he'd put some of the TO files up on the OUGA website, as well, so keep an eye out for that. Thanks for your interest!