This Old Neon Forum

Welcome to This Old Neon’s fourth official “BEST GAME EVER!!!” Project.

The “BEST GAME EVER!!!” Project is not intended to champion any particular objective quality. The best game can be the best for any of a number of reasons: its earnings or critical reception, its influence and impact, the emotional resonance of its art or music, the playability of its mechanics or the thoughtfulness of its design, the immersiveness of its world, the quality of its writing and characterization, or the memories and nostalgia it invokes. All participants are invited to engage in their own ways, and vote according to their own criteria, however arbitrary and however personal.

Round Four includes the next batch of games seeded by nomination weight in addition to the Round Three winners. There are 7 polls of 10-11 games each. If a game you nominated doesn’t appear in these polls, it probably seeded high enough to get a bye into a later round.

You can vote for 1-3 games per poll, or skip a poll entirely.
The top 3 games from each poll will advance to Round Five.
You can’t change your votes once they’ve been submitted, so click carefully. Voting closes on Saturday at midnight ADT.
Don’t forget to vote in these user-submitted categories. Others will be added in the coming weeks.

VOTE HERE

Most Innovative Mechanics (Finals)
Best Game You’ve Never Played (Ever) (Round Three)
Best Trilogy (Finals)
Best Light Gun Game (Round One)

I really don't understand why my 2 favorite series are getting lugged together in poll 4 like this. We never had this rule in the old tournament and it's just filled one poll with games I love compared to randomly assigning every game to every poll. Even if pokemon and zelda were in separate polls that would have been easier to accept. There's really no excuse for not having every game added randomly. Had I known most of my nominations were going to get put all in one poll I would have nominated way less and way differently.

It's really turning me off wanting to continue voting in the competition.

Just because it's a game in a good series doesn't mean it needs to be competing against every other game from that series in the early rounds. Some series are just plain better than others and deserve more than 3 games from that series to advance.

Imagine putting Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Super Mario Odyssey all in one poll and saying only 3 advance. This isn't a best Pokemon and best Zelda competition it's deciding what's the best game is and 2nd best and 3rd and so on

Basically Poll 4 includes about 50% of the games I enjoy out of this round. I could accept it if it was randomly generated but it obviously wasn't.

I don't mind that this years BGE is a bit different in that games of the same series are pitted against each other rather than spread through every poll. I think it will make for more diverse later rounds.

This is an interesting round. We're starting to see a lot of the big guns come out.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 03:23 We never had this rule in the old tournament

The rules of each event are different. Multiple people raised legitimate complaints about past events, so we made a couple design tweaks to fix those problems. This was discussed in the format planning before the event went live.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 03:23 Some series are just plain better than others and deserve more than 3 games from that series to advance.

That's for the voting to decide.

There are a lot of polls that have more than 3 games that deserve to advance that can't because of the rules of the tournament. It happens every year. That's why this is a contest, not an objective consensus.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 03:23 Basically Poll 4 includes about 50% of the games I enjoy out of this round.

Time to make some hard choices. It's not like there's going to be a shortage of Zelda and Pokemon games after this.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 03:23 I could accept it if it was randomly generated but it obviously wasn't.

It's still random to an extent. The top-seeded games of the round are spread across the top of the polls so they don't have to compete with each other (the benefits of high seeding). Zelda and Pokemon ending up in the same bracket was 100% RNG.

Kong Wen wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:00

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 03:23 We never had this rule in the old tournament

The rules of each event are different. Multiple people raised legitimate complaints about past events, so we made a couple design tweaks to fix those problems. This was discussed in the format planning before the event went live.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 03:23 Some series are just plain better than others and deserve more than 3 games from that series to advance.

That's for the voting to decide.

There are a lot of polls that have more than 3 games that deserve to advance that can't because of the rules of the tournament. It happens every year. That's why this is a contest, not an objective consensus.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 03:23 Basically Poll 4 includes about 50% of the games I enjoy out of this round.

Time to make some hard choices. It's not like there's going to be a shortage of Zelda and Pokemon games after this.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 03:23 I could accept it if it was randomly generated but it obviously wasn't.

It's still random to an extent. The top-seeded games of the round are spread across the top of the polls so they don't have to compete with each other (the benefits of high seeding). Zelda and Pokemon ending up in the same bracket was 100% RNG.

The thing is the voting cant decide with this format. You can't compare the pokemon and zelda games with the others as they're lugged in together.

If pokemon or Zelda was spread out then none could make it through or all of them could make it through lugging them together means. 1. If the lot of the series suck there's a good chance one of the bad games go through even though it's a bad game. 2. If it's a fantastic series with multiple fantastic games only 3 go through and others don't get to advance. Then you put in games like Okami and the other game in that bracket that's been screwed by being put in a insanely difficult bracket because it's apart of aseries bracket.

Everything should just be randomly put into brackets regardless of series. Again disadvantaging a game because it's in a series isn't okay.

It's a really unnatural way of group.

Making tough choices is fine but there not being a shortage of pokemon and zelda games after isn't an excuse. Sure we might have 5 zelda games later on but that doesn't mean the other zelda games are bad and deserve to be put into a gauntlet round where there's no way they can all make it through.

Nothing was actually explained that this was how games would be paired so it really screws over people who nominated multiple games from a series.

Anyway nothing can be changed now anyway. I'll probably just not vote as the seedings are already being abused by not truly randomizing the brackets.

On the one hand, I intellectually understand your concern. On the other hand, hahaha Nintendo fanboys.

Rob

Pluvius wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 07:43 On the one hand, I intellectually understand your concern. On the other hand, hahaha Nintendo fanboys.

Rob

Yeah I like a lot of Nintendo games but I don't think Nintendo fanboy is right.

I play my PS4 and Xbox One way more than my Switch (and Wii U earlier in the generation). Wii was my least played console last gen.

I've disliked Pokemon since Gen 4 and I've really only played about 5 zelda titles. I like 3D Mario (+2D retro mario) and Donkey Kong Country. Other than the one other Animal Crossing game I liked Nintendo is a bit of a wasteland.

Pikmin, Metroid, Kirby, F-Zero, Mario spin offs (excluding Kart), Star Fox and Smash all series I don't care much for.

I'm really the first person to shit over nintendo when they do something wrong. (Online, lack of UI/features on the switch etc)

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:45 The thing is the voting cant decide with this format. You can't compare the pokemon and zelda games with the others as they're lugged in together.

Sure you can. You can compare Pokemon and Zelda games with the random other games they faced in previous rounds and with the random other games the winners will be facing in subsequent rounds.

You could just as easily say the voting couldn't have decided in previous Projects when 4-5 excellent games of various series were lumped in the same bracket and only 3 of them could advance. "How will we ever know whether Dark Souls or Metroid Prime is better, since one of them has to get eliminated here!" The only difference is that this time those games are in the same series "bucket" instead of a general "both are critically acclaimed" bucket.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:45 Again disadvantaging a game because it's in a series isn't okay.

Whether it's disadvantaged or not is for the voting to decide.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:45 Sure we might have 5 zelda games later on but that doesn't mean the other zelda games are bad and deserve to be put into a gauntlet round where there's no way they can all make it through.

That's for the voting to decide.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:45 it really screws over people who nominated multiple games from a series.

No it doesn't. Many of those nominations would be seeded differently, and then the voting would decide. The stronger games will get the votes and the weaker ones won't. Some of their nominated games will advance, and some won't. Having your nominations discussed and voted upon is the user-benefit of the BGE, not necessarily just having them win. You're not screwed if your nominations get eliminated.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:45 I'll probably just not vote as the seedings are already being abused by not truly randomizing the brackets.

You're 100% welcome not to vote in this BGE. It says that right in the intro to each poll. Better luck on the next one!

BTW, characterizing it as "abuse" when it's a discussion-generating format that I invented is a big stretch. Just because you're salty about the format doesn't mean you have to slam the event. We've done several of these now over the past decade. It's very easy for it to get stale if you do the same thing every time or get the same results every time.

It's good to see series pitted against themselves rather than being split across all polls meaning those who have only played/nominated a few Nintendo games won't be able to just push every Mario, Zelda and Pokémon forward to the end. Some of the more deserving games from other platforms will have a better chance now.

Kong Wen wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 13:40

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:45 The thing is the voting cant decide with this format. You can't compare the pokemon and zelda games with the others as they're lugged in together.

Sure you can. You can compare Pokemon and Zelda games with the random other games they faced in previous rounds and with the random other games the winners will be facing in subsequent rounds.

You could just as easily say the voting couldn't have decided in previous Projects when 4-5 excellent games of various series were lumped in the same bracket and only 3 of them could advance. "How will we ever know whether Dark Souls or Metroid Prime is better, since one of them has to get eliminated here!" The only difference is that this time those games are in the same series "bucket" instead of a general "both are critically acclaimed" bucket.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:45 Again disadvantaging a game because it's in a series isn't okay.

Whether it's disadvantaged or not is for the voting to decide.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:45 Sure we might have 5 zelda games later on but that doesn't mean the other zelda games are bad and deserve to be put into a gauntlet round where there's no way they can all make it through.

That's for the voting to decide.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:45 it really screws over people who nominated multiple games from a series.

No it doesn't. Many of those nominations would be seeded differently, and then the voting would decide. The stronger games will get the votes and the weaker ones won't. Some of their nominated games will advance, and some won't. Having your nominations discussed and voted upon is the user-benefit of the BGE, not necessarily just having them win. You're not screwed if your nominations get eliminated.

Slurmee wrote: ↑18 Mar 2019 04:45 I'll probably just not vote as the seedings are already being abused by not truly randomizing the brackets.

You're 100% welcome not to vote in this BGE. It says that right in the intro to each poll. Better luck on the next one!

BTW, characterizing it as "abuse" when it's a discussion-generating format that I invented is a big stretch. Just because you're salty about the format doesn't mean you have to slam the event. We've done several of these now over the past decade. It's very easy for it to get stale if you do the same thing every time or get the same results every time.

I've accepted that there's nothing that can be done but you've contradicted yourself here by saying you've changed this format to make it less stale. Either this added rule doesn't change the voting or disadvantage anything (and hence doesn't change the staleness) or it changes the voting and makes it not stale and thus hinders votes for certain games.

There's obviously a reason this rule was added and it clearly disadvantages these games or it wouldn't exist. Why add it if it doesn't the whole concept was to not flood the back end with Nintendo titles and the only way to do that is to make put them all up against each other forcing them to knock each other out.

The issue isn't the rules the issue is the rules wasn't made clear from day one.

You briefly mentioned that you were thinking of having it run like this then the idea got dropped from the discussion and never brought up you then had a detailed write up explaining what was going to happen and people agreed on it and this rule was not apart of that.

Then suddenly after nomination, series games suddenly get pitted against each other without any warning. How long will they be pitted together? Will Breathe of the Wild and Wind Waker and Ocarina of time be pitted against each other forever over and over until less than 3 games can advance in that bracket or even worse will one of those get knocked out in top 200 or something. Nothings been made clear and it's completely ruined my nomination process.

It's turned a competition into a "we don't want to many mario, zelda or pokemon games in the competition" which changes things DRASTICALLY.

So yes it is abusing the system.