erico9001
You must find your own path to the future.
I used a spreadsheet to try to see how many characters would be in Smash bros 4. As you can see, I found the announcement date for each character, compiled them to create the amount of days from e3 2013 and compared it to the amount of revealed characters since e3 2013.
I'm quite pleased with this, actually. R² is really close to 1. It also turns out I was correct back when the game was first announced in thinking that the frequency of smash characters would increase with time, but this is irrelevant.
So anyways, there are 460 days between e3 2013 and the release date for Smash bros in Japan. It's pretty obvious that by that date we would have all the characters announced except for the possible secret ones. Extrapolate the trendline out to x=460 days, and you get y=44.83 characters. Round to 45, unless we're looking at 8/10 of a character! (I guess that could be Little Mac =P). Add in your preference for the amount of secret characters. Personally, I see it being 3 only based on how I think there was supposed to be 2 back in Brawl before they got leaked or something. I think I read this somewhere a while ago, but idk, it's just a guess.
The equation is 11.7522786583exp(.0029106077x) so that if you want to test it out yourself you may do so without having to type it out. (google can do this if you just paste it in)
Here's a download for the spreadsheet, but I don't think the graph will show up.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/275120798/Smash bros characters.xls
And here's my data for the characters, when they got revealed, and the amount of days between their announcement dates. The characters fall under the date they got announced and then the time elapsed between the next character announcement is below that.
... and that's what the math suggests! It's nothing complex, really. I've double checked all of the data, but still, if anyone find a mistake feel free to let me know and I can make adjustments. As more characters get announced, I can update this, but it probably won't change much unless troll Sakurai REALLY throws a curveball.
Feel free to use the data I gathered if you want to try doing it a different way. It took a while to find all of that.
I'm quite pleased with this, actually. R² is really close to 1. It also turns out I was correct back when the game was first announced in thinking that the frequency of smash characters would increase with time, but this is irrelevant.
So anyways, there are 460 days between e3 2013 and the release date for Smash bros in Japan. It's pretty obvious that by that date we would have all the characters announced except for the possible secret ones. Extrapolate the trendline out to x=460 days, and you get y=44.83 characters. Round to 45, unless we're looking at 8/10 of a character! (I guess that could be Little Mac =P). Add in your preference for the amount of secret characters. Personally, I see it being 3 only based on how I think there was supposed to be 2 back in Brawl before they got leaked or something. I think I read this somewhere a while ago, but idk, it's just a guess.
The equation is 11.7522786583exp(.0029106077x) so that if you want to test it out yourself you may do so without having to type it out. (google can do this if you just paste it in)
Here's a download for the spreadsheet, but I don't think the graph will show up.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/275120798/Smash bros characters.xls
And here's my data for the characters, when they got revealed, and the amount of days between their announcement dates. The characters fall under the date they got announced and then the time elapsed between the next character announcement is below that.
June 11
Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Bowser, Pit, Villager, Mega Man, Wii Fit Trainer
31 days
July 12
Olimar
26 days
August 7
Luigi
36 days
September 12
Peach
14 days
September 26
Toon Link
5 days
October 1
Sonic
37 days
November 7
Marth
31 days
December 18
Rosalina
8 days
December 26
Zelda
15 days
January 10
King Dedede
21 days
January 31
Lucario
13 days
February 13
Little Mac
8 days
February 21
Diddy Kong
46 days
April 8
Zero Suit Samus, Sheik, Yoshi, Charizard, Greninja
45 days
May 23
Ike
18 days
June 10
Miis, Palutena, Pac-Man
34 days
July 14
Captain Falcon, Robin, Lucina
Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Bowser, Pit, Villager, Mega Man, Wii Fit Trainer
31 days
July 12
Olimar
26 days
August 7
Luigi
36 days
September 12
Peach
14 days
September 26
Toon Link
5 days
October 1
Sonic
37 days
November 7
Marth
31 days
December 18
Rosalina
8 days
December 26
Zelda
15 days
January 10
King Dedede
21 days
January 31
Lucario
13 days
February 13
Little Mac
8 days
February 21
Diddy Kong
46 days
April 8
Zero Suit Samus, Sheik, Yoshi, Charizard, Greninja
45 days
May 23
Ike
18 days
June 10
Miis, Palutena, Pac-Man
34 days
July 14
Captain Falcon, Robin, Lucina
Feel free to use the data I gathered if you want to try doing it a different way. It took a while to find all of that.