Original message ([an error occurred while processing this directive] Views )[an error occurred while processing this directive]
| Puar 381th Post
 
Silver Customer
  
    
|  "To DKW Et Al! KOF Survival Rates: A Rebuttal"
, posted Wed 25 Sep 10:47:
quote:
...regularly killing off or giving the boot to nearly all the new arrivals was a really, REALLY bad idea. I understand that Terry & co. aren't going anywhere, but what does it say for a fighting game that nearly everyone who breaks the mold either gets tossed for being "weird" or "not compatible with the story", or hopelessly wedded to a single uberplot and dumped trash once said plot ends? For something that began as an exciting, wide-open, anyone-can-win slugfest, the last thing it needs is predictable rosters.
Because I somewhat disagreed with DKW's statement, I began to refute it in the "Will the KOF series ever end?" thread started by TalbainEric. I began...
quote:
New Characters Unassociated With Plot With Long Life Spans
Leona (7)
Blue Mary (6)
Shingo Yabuki (5... or is it 6?)
Also, more or less, unless your name is Hinako, Jhun Hoon, Eiji Kisaragi, your son is a Flaming Slacker, you're an American who plays Sports, or you belong to an Ultimate Boss Team, you've been in at least 3 or 4 KOFs. Considering there was no significant changes in Roster, and also a lot of people not giving a crap about KOF, until '96, that gives us 7 KOFs that we are taking into consideration. 3 or 4 out of 7 is around half of the KOFs... I have a point, but I'm not willing to type any further on this. (;
Since I wanted to procrastinate further, I did the math and then some to back up my statement.
SELECTIVE NEW CHARACTERS AFTER KOF 1994
Using the Selective Roster I meant in quote, the latter located above, I found that the recurrance rate for these characters in KOF was 66.9%. This was done by adding the total appearances a character made by the amount of total appearances possible after their inception in KOF. In these experiments, alternate versions of characters were counted as being the same, so Orochi Leona appearing in a game with Leona only counts as one appearance for the Leona Character.
The resulting figures can be represented by a count of 2/3 and a vote of 2/3 in almost any thing resembling a rational civilation would be counted as a majority. That said, this roster is representative that any given new arrival in KOF is very likely, or 66.9% likely, to reappear in subsequent and future KOFs.
However, these results are somewhat biases, leaving out some characters who did not appear in at least 2 King of Fighters and excluding bosses. To provide more valid and less refutable results, I continued the analyzation under the imposition that what was meant by new arrivals was any character introduced to KOF after the first KOF game in 1994. All data that follows does not include any characters based on number of appearances.
NEW CHARACTERS AFTER KOF 1994
These results yielded a lower percentage of returning characters. Any given character had a 55.4% chance of returning to compete again. Pondering over the given data, I decided to narrow down the research to exclude boss characters since they are 'not supposed' to return due to death or illness in their family... unless their name is Rugal and they refuse to go away because no one loves them.
The new results, sans bosses who shouldn't come back for any reason whatsoever, gave a higher percentage of return, banking in at 58.5%. Though not as significant as 66.9%, both 58.5% and 55.4% are a majority under the definition where majority means more than half. Although they are not as convincing numbers to run off of, it is still a majority, still slaving off the notion that new arrivals have a low survival rate in KOF.
CHARACTERS ORIGINATING IN KOF
Upon even further contemplation, I interpreted 'new arrivals' as all characters who originate in KOF. This was based off of DKW's statement that 'Terry & Co.' were not going anywhere, taking that to mean old, established SNK characters who, because they originated in other games, would never be subject to roster changes, immune via the nectar in parts of the SNK Universe never traversed in KOF.
This new sampling of only characters who had their roots in KOF showed that 'new arrivals' had a survival rate of 65.8%. When subtracting bosses from the equation, survival rate rockets to 71.2%! Under this interpretation, 'new arrivals' are not very likely to get booted from the lineup.
FINAL ROUND
As a final measure of KOF newbie survival rates, I included in the examination 'that nearly everyone who breaks the mold either gets tossed for being "weird" or "not compatible with the story", or hopelessly wedded to a single uberplot and dumped trash once said plot ends?'
Because the characters I believe are meant by the description of 'breaking the mold' and being 'weird' appeared in more than half of their possible appearances, I discarded this statement as being false. Bao, Jhun Hoon, and Hinako Shijou, characters I believe to be the pinnacle of breaking from the mold and weird, appeared individually appeared in more than half and combined to appear in the majority of possible KOF.
Thus this last study conducted using only those characters who originate in KOF and are not compatible with the story or single überplot. It should be noted that characters important to one plot (The Orochi Saga), but not significantly important to the another (The NESTS Confusion) are counted after completion of their role in the überplot.
For example, Kyo Kusanagi is taken into consideration in 1994 before the Orochi Saga began and after the Orochi Saga ended. Iori Yagami is also put into the populace at the end of the Orochi Saga. Although Kyo Kusanagi does play a minor role in initiation of the NESTS Storyline, attention shifts from his character to K' and the plot could continue without Kyo, so he is once again included in the count.
The same rule could be applied to most other characters who may or may not arguably be supporting characters. If the plot could logically continue without them and they are expendable, they are taken into account. In other words, excluding these characters would have no great bearing on the big picture.
The NESTS Saga could continue without that Maxima fellow, so he is also in the count. With or without Benimaru, Kusanagi could have still joined with Kagura and Yagami to defeat Orochi in KOF97. During KOF99, K' and Maxima could have been teamed up with any other two schmoes, so Benimaru and Shingo are taken into account. Because no Dragon Power Saga has started yet, Bao is included in the count for KOF2K1 characters.
On the contrary, if Whip had not been in KOF99, it would have never been revealed that Krizalid was a clone of K', so she is excluded in the count. Orochi Leona is deemed significant in KOF97 because she is one of the 8 Orochi Figures respresentative of the Eight Headed Orochi Dragon, so she is not included. In KOF95, Rugal needed to destruct from the Orochi Power in order to further set up the Orochi Storyline and give Goenitz another tie-in.
FINAL RESULTS
Characters indigenuous to KOF who have no bearing on the main storyline and current überplot have a survival rate of 59.8%, or if you'd like to make the numbers more fair because of the negative effects non-recurring bosses have, they are 69.5% likely to show up in another KOF tournament.
In conclusion, statistically speaking, DKW is wrong in his statement that the game developers began a trend of "regularly killing off or giving the boot to nearly all the new arrivals... nearly everyone who breaks the mold either gets tossed for being "weird" or "not compatible with the story", or hopelessly wedded to a single uberplot and dumped trash once said plot ends?.
Regardless of which of these populations you wish to examine, KOF new arrivals of varying definitions are more likely to respawn then they are to perma-fry. The average survival rate among all groups in these experiments was 63.9%, taking into account series with bosses included it was 62.0%, and a survival rate of 66.4% occurred without bosses. The range of these results was 58.5% through 71.2%.
Special Notes: Although Kula Diamond, Chizuru Kagura, and Saishu Kusanagi later appear as regularly playable characters, they are included in the count of bosses because that is how they originated, as mid-bosses. Although the Orochi New Faces Team are mid-bosses, their alternate forms are how they 'normally began' and so they are accounted for in 1997 and on. Characters are only counted once they are playable, though Saisyu and Vice appear in KOF94, it is not until KOF95 and KOF96 respectively that they are tallied. All numbers were rounded to the nearest tenth decimal. For the Excel file containing the numbers and figures that back the statistics stated, go to http://puar.hypermart.net/kof.xls
P.S.: Yes, I know this make me a KOF Freak with too much time on his hands, but it’s also going to double as homework for my Statistics class… The Professor did say it could be about anything! Enjoy my insanity, DKW, feel free to flame me for picking on you. (;
"You should get to know me better no one's every what they seem..."
[this message was edited by Puar on Wed 25 Sep 10:51] |
| Replies:
| |
|
|
