Hi, I noticed you had some issues with the OrionStats thing. I think your characterization is a bit hostile and I'm free after some stuff I needed to do with my dad, so I'll respond to this and a few messages you had directed to this a while back (I'm rarely active here, I generally just lurk.)
For one, you can definitely argue otherwise, and people have. My work is inherently amateur and serves to give a "general" idea of who is doing well in the metagame. I do like to represent it like this, but the idea that I'd
only represent it like that is wrong. I've drug my feet a bit at a few points in the year, but I've made larger projects known - I intend to do a lot after Kongo Saga to analyze the first year of Ultimate to the best of my ability. This includes looking at character presence in a
number of ways, not just the regional+national scores.
For two, the lack of a public results sheet is a matter of time commitment. The google sheet I use links directly to the smash.gg pages. I intend to probably have a text tab for results so they can be publicly looked at since I often do the job of looking through VODs of recent events. This is good in the sense that my database now links to the actual events, but bad in the sense that it removes the characters.
I do have a word file with the characters that I will probably make public once I start releasing year 1 data and for 2020 I'll be more active in relaying results since I think I can manage to copy & paste from my word file week-to-week.
Also, unless I'm mistaken, the info given is pretty clear. Point values are determined by placements with a lot of meandering about on details. Co-maining, secondaries, etc. The methodology tab is most incomplete in relation to the TTS itself, as in, player values getting updated when people top 4 majors. This'll be more clearly relayed since part of the reason it
isn't clear is player values by power rankings external to the USA change a lot. My fix for this was to have a stable 6 month long PR for many of the 11 "super-regions." Canada has one, Middle East has one, but areas like AUS, MX, AP, EU, etc. don't.
To address earlier messages you posted, you seem to take issues with how echoes are handled. This is a consequence of the "Echo" term being very inconsistent even from the development staff. In this case, I separate based on the metagame rather than what the developers laid out, because Smash history in general rarely adheres to the intentions of aforementioned staff, wherever they exist.
Echoes:
> Merged
> NOT Merged
> NOT Merged
> Merged
> Merged
> NOT Merged
> Merged
For some mergings, the justification is very simple. Simon & Richter are effectively the same character outside of property differences. Daisy & Peach are merged for similar reasons. The Dark counterparts are slightly more sketchy because differences exist. However, in the case of the Samuses, these are very minimal, and both iterations are regularly played by top mains of the character.
The Pits were merged after July because the character's results are near nonexistent and most people who use one use the other. Here, we run into situations where if a player co-mained both, I'd need to count both, but that'd be kind of silly to double the value of a character when that character is so similar to their counterpart that it really only matters for specific matchups (if at all, since Pit's core doesn't revolve around electroshock arm.) Arrows are the most MU dependent aspect of Pit, to my knowledge. I don't see the point in separating what is essentially a different mode-select for same-tiered characters nobody uses, especially when their separation in Smash 4, something I had public documentation over for years, yielded nothing of interest.
Marth and Lucina
weren't merged because there is a very public and acknowledged understanding - at this point - that they are very different due to Marth's tipper mechanic. This is more stated than it was in Smash 4, to the extent that Marth is a much worse character and sees very little use. This is attested by MKLeo and seemingly every notable Marth from Smash 4 going into Ultimate, and MKLeo's attempts to make Marth work individually were very mixed at Summit and led him to essentially drop the character.
Lucina is almost objectively more consistent and reliable across the majority of her moveset. This is distinct from individual move differences or small quirks seen in the Pits or Samuses, respectively, and warrants a separation both to see how Marth operates by himself and because he's just noticeably different.
Roy/Chrom aren't merged because there is nowhere near enough playerbase crossover to reasonably justify it. There are a set of Roy mains, and there are a set of Chrom mains, with limited overlap to my knowledge.) I am doing a PR analysis by the start of 2020, and I'll take this back if there's a serious overlap, but among top Roy/Chrom mains the overlap has thus far been limited. Adding this to the similar major differences between the two swordsmen seen with Marth/Lucina (only without a viability gap), it again seems reasonable to keep them separate.
Ken/Ryu are again emblematic of the inconsistencies seen in what even defines an echo, but not to belabor the point, they are often separated by entire tiers. While there is actual overlap between shoto mains, this could reasonably be seen as the result of many former Ryu mains keeping him around while playing Ken, the generally agreed superior pick between the two.
The criteria is context dependent on the metagame and that's probably how it should be (instead of a total adherence to what the staff intended) since it means I'm operating a TTS for the metagame in the boundaries of that metagame. Keeping them separate by principal introduces problems in case of merged instances for reasons I brought up with the Pits - you're risking the inflating of results. Like, if Samsora woke up one day and decided he'd main both Peach and Daisy, and every subsequent result was to count both of them separately, I'd be inflating that individual entity's results based on nothing besides what amounts to an alternate costume slot.
It is far less headache inducing to just go with what people generally determine to be in the case in the context of the meta when it comes to merging echoes in results. Some warrant it, some don't, and it's easier to understand the reasons why than to go in blind on merged echoes when counting results.
where powershielding was absurdly OP, Link's grab was complete **** and DDD could use his tether-like grab range to grab Link, chain Dthrows across the stage and wall him with one of the best Bairs in the game until he died. -3 MUs are counterpicks.
