Yeah, Goh and Brad were always at the bottom in character usage.

I am more surprised to see Kage and Pai being used considerably less in the recent tournaments. Every time I collected the data in the past--Kage, Pai, Akira, Lau, and Jacky were always the top 5 characters used in tournaments. Not sure if the Kage/Pai players are switching over to Jean/Taka in VF5R or were there gradually less Kage/Pai players at the end of the version C days (when I stopped collecting data)...

Nice to see Jeff get a boost up... Lei and Kage kinda dropped didn't they? And I agree with Tony, the EVO boys need some beefing.

Thanks for this akai!!

I took the raw numbers and crunched them in a different way for an added perspective. What I did was the following:

- Used three groups: CHAMP, TOP 2, and TOP 4

- Calculated winning percentages for each group off of Entry numbers

- Calculated the standard deviation of those percentages

- Used those percentages and standard deviations to form a preliminary tier list

Here are the results (character placement within a tier based on descending order):

TOP 4
More than 2 sd above mean: Jean
1-2 sd above mean: Taka
1 sd above/below mean: Lion, Shun, Akira, Lau, Jeffry, Kage, Eileen, Jacky, Sarah, Aoi, Vanessa, Lei, Goh, Blaze
More than 1 sd below mean: Wolf, Pai, Brad

TOP 2
1-2 sd above mean: Taka, Shun, Jeffry, Akira, Jean
1 sd above/below mean: Lion, Kage, Goh, Sarah, Lau, Jacky, Eileen, Vanessa, Aoi, Wolf, Brad
More than 1 sd below mean: Pai, Blaze, Lei

CHAMP
1-2 sd above mean: Akira, Jeffry, Shun, Taka
1 sd above/below mean: Jean, Lion, Kage, Sarah, Eileen, Vanessa
1-2 sd below mean: Jacky, Lau, Aoi, Brad, Lei
More than 2 sd below mean: Goh, Pai, Blaze, Wolf

How to interpret the above?

In terms of the sd (standard deviation) numbers, for a character to be placed 2 sds above or below the mean is statistically significant. This means that it's not likely due to chance -- this character really is overpowered or underpowered.

If within 1 sd however, there is a big probability that differences in results are due to random sampling rather than fundamental advantage/disadvantage. More than 1 sd and less than 2 sd is a grayer area.

In terms of which group to go with, it depends on your belief in what level of play should drive tier lists. Is it at the highest level where elite players play? In that case, you probably want to weight results for the CHAMP group more than the others.

Perhaps you believe that at the CHAMP level it's more about individual players than it is about character (i.e. Itazan would win tournaments whether with Shun or with Pai) in which case you may want to go with the TOP 4 results. Personally, I am more of this camp. Getting to the top 4 in a tournament is already pretty hard and should be a good enough of a proxy for character strength.

Looking across the results, my conclusions are

- Jean and Taka may be overpowered (or players haven't gotten used to defending against them yet)

- Pai and Wolf may be underpowered

- Shun and Jeffry are strong but not as Godly as many feared (thus far)

- Kage, Lau, Jacky and Sarah are firmly mid-tier (so each character's respective players can stop crying now)

Although virtually impossible to quantify, I'd say this is playing a large factor to their success. I think if we were able to perform the same analysis for VF4:Evo shortly after its release, we may see a similar trend with Brad and Goh.

Although I'm speculating, I don't think that the inability to defend against new characters applies as well to new characters introduced at the outset of a new VF (i.e Shun/Lion for 2, Taka/Aoi for 3, and Lei/Vanessa for 4) as players are also learning new game mechanics as well.

Ice-9: It is always good to look at things from a different perspective. Thanks for putting time in your analysis!

As for Jean and Taka being overpowered...

The skill level between players entering the tournament will vary considerably (uncontrolled variable). I assumed since the tournament format eliminates players that should generally be "less skilled," those making it to the finals should be at a more comparable skill level.

Both Jean and Taka players have a high success in advancing to the semifinals. If you look at only the success rate of Jean and Taka finalists in winning the tournament (winner's column, players not making it to the finals are ignored), they are ranked average at best. So...I don't think they are overpowered, maybe overpowered for the less skilled or inexperience players.

One month of data, especially with a recent system change, is not very reliable, imho. Give about two more months of tournament data and the ranking charts would be more consistent. The chart could look quite different from how it is now.

If anyone have suggestions or ideas to better present or analyze the data (that won't take too much extra work) let me know!

ice-9, I think your list is all well and good, but something like a metagame, doesn't show on it. So there will always be that bias in the data.

Take for example, Pai being so low right now, if you see the characters that are used the most, perhaps now Pai doesn't have as strong tools to battle those characters like before, or maybe those characters are better equipped to deal with Pai now.

If there were more Goh's and Aoi's playing this time around, it might offset Sarah's numbers for example.

Basically what I'm saying is that, a characters usage frequency can offset the characters that are unfavorable matchup wise.

One thing that impresses me so much about VF is the fact even the least played characters, are played quite a bit compared to the rest of the cast. You just don't find that in other fighters. Not in tournament play anyway.

Jin that's exactly what I was thinking. That's a concrete testament to the balance of the game.

You could just tossed them charts out of the Window. The results are based on what YOU do. You control your own destiny if you ask me.

A reply to a question about a Version C chart: