Pikmin pluck % by stage

[geekd]

I think that it is about time we figure this out!

While it seems apparent that different types of terrain (ice, platform, rock, etc.) do not affect your chances of pulling any particular color pikmin, various stages do have obvious discrepancies (ex. summit gives more blues than most other levels). Some research has already been done on this topic, but as you will see, they didn't get too far. You can read what Trueredemption discovered (before his disappearance ) here.

I can sum it up for you though: on final destination the averages are 23.3% for red, yellow and blue; 15% for white and purple.

I plan to carry on where true left off, hopefully with some help! The first thing that we need is an easy procedure to follow. I plan to pluck at least 600 pikmin (100 trials x 6 pikmin per trial) on any given stage, then divide the number of a particular color plucked by the total number plucked to get the percent for that color. Then repeat for each color.

If you plan to help out then please post the stage you plan to test first, and then edit it later with the numbers. That way we won't all end up doing the same stages; although I don't think it would be a too bad of an idea for people to repeat levels--but first things first. We should first give priority to tournament and counterpick stages (battlefield, luigi's mansion, norfair, yoshi's island, etc.) I will do as much as I can, but can not realistically finish this all by myself. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

***PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING***
If you think that this idea is worthless or a waste of time, please save your breath. This is an avenue of olimar’s metagame that interests me, and will need to be figured out eventually. If you disagree, then you are wrong, and I don't care what you think. Please do not pollute my thread with you negativity!

 

[geekd]

Norfair!

I initially expected this stage to pull a majority of reds. I was very surprised to find that I got way more yellows than anything else. In the end I plucked a little under 1,200 pimin and discovered:

red 21.5 (244); yellow 30.0 (341); blue 19.6 (222); white 11.9 (135); purple 17.0 (193)

I think that these numbers can be reasonably rounded to
Red 22
Yellow 30
Blue 20
White 12
Purple 16

I will tackle luigi's mansion next

 

[Dotcom]

With this it's kinda scary because there are so many unknown variables.
When on a certain stage, does a different part of the stage give you differne tpercents than another part.
Maybe even damage could affect pluck percents differently.
Just letting you know that there is stuff like that that ou may want to take into consideration.
Not trying to discourage from your work, just letting you in on some stuff that you may have to test out for things to be accurate.

 

[geekd]

i agree, maybe there are a lot of factors, maybe stage is the only one but lets start investigating. If someone else could at least doublecheck what I find we could very easily determine whether or not stage is the only factor.

For luigi's mansion I plucked 840 pikmin
206 red; 198 yellow; 154 blue; 141 white; 141 purple

my best guess is
Red 24
Yellow 24
Blue 18
White 17
Purple 17

Pluck a couple hundred and see if your numbers add up to roughly the same; if they are way off then at least I will know whether or not I am in way over my head. I feel fairly confident however that stage is the only variable. In either case, there is only one way to find out...

 

[geekd]

I just redid trueredemptions findings on Final destination while jacking up as many variables as I could think of. I played against 2 opponents, one with 10 stocks more than me, one with 10 stocks less. My damage was higher than one of them and lower than the other. I turned Items on and plucked about 450 pikmin. My results were not altered in the slightest from the accepted standard.

red 23.4 (104); yellow 22.4 (101); blue 24.4 (110); white 14.6 (66); purple 15.5 (70)

This is remarkably close to 23.3% for red yellow and blue, and 15% for white and purple regardless of any other variables.

Hopefully this can, to some degree, verify my suspicions that the pluck percents are determined solely by stage.

 

[geekd]

Battlefield

thanks for all the support guys

Battlefield seemed very close to final destination in terms of pluck%, although purples and whites were a bit more rare (particularly purple)

red 24.4 (152); yellow 25.5 (159); blue 25.0 (156); white 13.8 (86); purple 11.4 (71)

I plucked half on the ground and half on the platforms. There was no significant difference between the two, although purples seemed slightly more common from the platforms.

My best guess is:
red 25
yellow 25
blue 25
white 12.5
purple 12.5

edit: please keep in mind that this might very well be the standard 23.3/15 pattern. The low purple and white count may have been coincidental. feel free to double check!

 

[samai]

Wow this is really interesting

 

[Rocann]

stage makes no difference; terrain makes no difference

 

[BlackWaltzX]

All I see from these are just about 23, 23, 23, 15, 15.


EDIT)) For the fun of it, I will be backing up you by plucking a bit for funsies.


EDIT2)) Battlefield.
Blue-59
Yellow-53
Red-47
Purple-19
White-35

While on the bottom floor, I picked more whites than purple. One the right platform, I had more whites than purple as well.


Mountain Top
Blue-22
Yellow-13
Red-16
Purple-10
White-14

 

[geekd]

^thanks

I just finished yoshi's island and pokemon stadium 1, which both follow the same pattern as final destination.

Yoshi's island:
red 23.5 (73); yellow 23.2 (72); blue 25.8 (80); white 13.2 (41); purple 14.2 (44)

Pokemon stadium 1:
red 24.2 (102); yellow 22.8 (96); blue 23.3 (98); white 16.2 (68); *purple 13.5 (57)

*I should add that I heard a rumor a while ago that more purples were plucked from the big rock. This was very difficult to test, however whenever the mountain scene came I would forget my test, jump on the rock and pluck like crazy. Just from eye-balling it I did seem to pull more purples. It might have just been my imagination though...

I think that it is fairly safe to assume that unless proven otherwise, most levels probably follow this pattern. There are definite exceptions though...

 

[geekd]

Summit

To nobody's surprise, summit follows a very irregular pattern (very heavy on the blues and a suprisingly high number of whites). This is what I got:

red 21.5 (99); yellow 16.9 (78); blue 30.6 (141); white 20.2 (93); purple 10.8 (50)

Once again, my best guess is
red 22
yellow 18
blue 30
white 20
purple 10

 

[geekd]

stage makes no difference; terrain makes no difference

what makes you say that?

 

[BlackWaltzX]

Alright, so now my final verdict is..
Only a few stages have different pluck %. Most have the 23/23/23/15/15 setup.


Unless Summit is legal, this doesn't matter much. As well as you should ban that stage over any in the first place.
Do more on Norfair. Yellows can't be the most if it was luck or not.

 

[Fino]

While I commend you on your work, I think we should focus on stages the legitimately look like they'd give different results first. And knowing this is good for counter picking. By that I mean, picking a stage in which, statistically, you get more yellows to play a pika (BUT NOT NORFAIR lol), or a stage that gets more blues to play characters you need to grab, or rely on grab game, to beat.
Anyways, I Think we should have more support for this.


~Fino

 

[geekd]

Alright, so now my final verdict is..
Only a few stages have different pluck %. Most have the 23/23/23/15/15 setup.


Unless Summit is legal, this doesn't matter much. As well as you should ban that stage over any in the first place.
Do more on Norfair. Yellows can't be the most if it was luck or not.

I agree; it seems like a fairly safe assumption that most stages follow the 23.3/15 pattern. I also thought the same thing about norfair after picking my first 600--why yellow? so I picked another 600 and got the same exact thing. please feel free to doublecheck this but 1200 pikmin seems to me like a fairly thourough test.

While I commend you on your work, I think we should focus on stages the legitimately look like they'd give different results first. And knowing this is good for counter picking. By that I mean, picking a stage in which, statistically, you get more yellows to play a pika (BUT NOT NORFAIR lol), or a stage that gets more blues to play characters you need to grab, or rely on grab game, to beat.
Anyways, I Think we should have more support for this.


~Fino

Yeah I don't think any olimar in their right mind would ever want to play on summit, I just wanted to test a level I suspected of following a different pluck pattern

I'm going to check out lylat cruise next

 

[OlimarFan]

stage makes no difference; terrain makes no difference

I must disagree with you there. Check http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=158890 for confirmation.

 

[geekd]

Lylat Cruise

I'm now to the point where I am 99% possitive that different levels have different pluck patterns. Most seem to follow the fd standard but some obviously do not--and I intend to find them

Good news is that lylat seems to follow an irregular pattern.

Lylat cruise:
red 21.8 (128); yellow 28.9 (170); blue 20.1 (118); white 13.8 (81); purple 15.5 (91)

best guess
red 22
yellow 30
blue 20
white 14
purple 14

Just like norfair, yellows seem to be far and away the most common. Use this to your advantage against opponents with electric attacks (pika, lucas, etc)

 

[geekd]

Delphino Plaza

*Once I finish a few more of these then I will update them all into the op*

Delphino seems close to the standard, however I pulled way to many purple for it to be a coincidence

red 21.3 (161); yellow 22.5 (170); blue 22.6 (171); white 13.6 (103); purple 19.9 (150)

best guess
red 22
yellow 22
blue 22
white 14
purple 20

As I said, I have pulled more purples here than I have on any other level (much more, in fact). I suppose this may be useful against opponents like marth or mk. If you favor the purps--delphino might be the place for you.

 

[deepseadiva]

Geekd, this thread is AWESOME. We already have a counterpick in Lylat against Pikachu. Good work and keep it up!

 

[RichBrown]

I will admit, I was really disinterested in this topic at first, but the lylat information is interesting. If it's true, you've made a nice discovery. I'd strongly recommend getting a much larger sample size from Lylat, because looking at delfino, you got loads of purples, but you classified that as a coincidence, whereas on lylat you got loads of yellows, but said it was a discovery.

With Delfino, there are a million different terrains to pick from, so I'd recommend trying each one individually somehow.

If you can find a stage that gives us primarily reds, snake will be even more of our ***** haha.

I guess once I get my wii (any day now) this will be something mindless I can do whenever I don't feel like practicing anything else haha. don't count on it tho

also, you might already be doing this, but it would help you save time if you had an extra controller, set the Cstick to Bsticking, and tested this way. that way you can pluck and chuck simultaneously and get much faster results.

hope this helps.

 

[geekd]

I will admit, I was really disinterested in this topic at first, but the lylat information is interesting. If it's true, you've made a nice discovery. I'd strongly recommend getting a much larger sample size from Lylat, because looking at delfino, you got loads of purples, but you classified that as a coincidence, whereas on lylat you got loads of yellows, but said it was a discovery.

With Delfino, there are a million different terrains to pick from, so I'd recommend trying each one individually somehow.

Thanks, but I said I pulled "way to many for it to be a coincidence". Although I was already thinking delphino might have a different pattern for every terrain; it seemed like a daunting task to test each individual---what with the stage constantly changing. My results for that level seemed more even than any other and this could potentially be contributed to each terrain having one pattern that compliments the others. This could be interesting to look into further but the general excess of purples is definitely noteworthy.

Lylat was definitely not a coincidence. I saw the pattern after plucking my first 60, and it persisted throughout the entirety of the test. Pluck 60 for yourself and you will find roughly 1/3 yellow (similar to blues on summit or yellows on norfair). Like I said though, the more verification I can get the better!

also, you might already be doing this, but it would help you save time if you had an extra controller, set the Cstick to Bsticking, and tested this way. that way you can pluck and chuck simultaneously and get much faster results.

hope this helps.

I wasn't -- thanks for the tip

 

[RichBrown]

by "tested it this way," i meant "test it this way," my grammar failed haha. i misread what you said about delfino, my bad.

no problem, you should be able to test twice as fast now with 2 olimars at the edge and a simple flick of the cstick will make it go faster since you can do it all at the same time.

 

[Kyas]

When you are finished with your work, I'd be obliged to post this (as a quote giving you credit, of course) in my "Everything You Need to Know About Pikmin" sticky, if you would like me to. It's certainly relevant to the guide and we need the fewest number of stickies possible.

Oh, also, I have noticed that Pokemon Stadium and Pirate Ship seem to give Olimar more yellows than average.

On second thought, I am being hasty. When your research is completed and confirmed, I will happily post it in my thread if you so desire.

 

[BlackWaltzX]

I still feel the same as before about this.
When you get a 70% purple stage, I'll be interested in this project 100%.

 

[1048576]

Homerun contest 100% purples lol

 

[geekd]

sorry guys i've been slacking off recently

I moved back to eugene about a week ago and I've just been partying hard every day and night since. Now that school has started though I suspect that I'll be slowing down. Hopefully I can whip through a few more levels this week.

thanks for being patient with me

 

[peeup]

This is an extremely interesting topic. If you could find a stage that gives a large amount for each color, that would totally shift olimar's counterpick game.

 

[Cook]

It seems to me like I get a lot of yellows and purples on Halberd. I'm too lazy to check myself, but I thought you might be interested in testing that stage next.

 

[geekd]

^sounds like a good idea

 

[1048576]

Just plucked 300 from Halberd.

Red:72
Blue:64
Yellow:74
White:49
Purple:41

Seems like there's nothing special about Halberd.

 

[XienZo]

anyone try RC? It gets CPed against Olimar a lot.

 

[geekd]

haha i lied
its now getting to the point where im fairly possitive that im an alcoholic
i'll try to get around to testing out a few more levels

I really do think that this is important enough to continue until we have at least all tourny-legal stages plucked and tested

lets not let this thread die...

 

[Davy Jones]

I'd like to try it on any stage, but I'm to lazy to do it...

 

[the_real_toad]

If I had a wii I'd gladly help test. Since I have nothing to do all day but unfortunately I'm wiiless

 

[kingofping4]

Well I'm off work and bored, so I'll test a few stages. I'll try RC since it was mentioned, and I guess Luigi's Mansion since I like that stage. I'm not sure what the stage list is like these days, but I'll look at it and maybe do another stage or two from it.

 

[P-House]

Thanks for the helpful info!

 

[RichBrown]

im highly intrigued by delfino. as of late I've become infatuated with purple pikmin, and I'm deadly if I have 3+ in my line. if it truly is a purple stage, this could become a counterpick for me. I may have misremembered, but for some reason I recall people complaining about how this is a bad olimar stage. yes, there is that strange once in a blue moon glitch where he falls through the stage, but it's happened to me once ever. my pikmin have gotten desynched about 5 times ever on this map. other than that, there are walk off parts of the stage, which allows to bate people in for easy ko's (pivot grabs!!) and olimar's crap recovery really doesn't matter during certain sections.

I'll be in vegas this weekend, and there's a day where I'm gonna be stuck in my hotel doing nothing, if I can remember I'll test it then. I really really hope this stage bleeds purple...

 

[XienZo]

The main issue with Delfino is water and how Pikmin don't get space suits.

 

[kingofping4]

Well, I didn't do RC . I wasn't keeping track of my numbers very well as I kept plucking at bad times/spots and losing some of them without counting. But of the roughly 246 that I did record, this is what I got.

Red: 57 (23.2%)
Yellow: 64 (26.0%)
Blue: 60 (24.4%)
White: 37 (15.0%)
Purple: 28 (11.4 %)

With a small sample size like this, it's hard to say what's going on here. It's pretty close to the standard 23.3/15, but the yellow and purples might warrant further looking.

I did do a proper 600 on Luigi's Mansion though.

Red: 148 (24.6%)
Yellow: 146 (24.3%)
Blue: 140 (23.3%)
White: 99 (16.5%)
Purple: 67 (11.1%)

So the RYB is still pretty close to 23.3, but AGAIN I get a difference of 5% between white and purple. I think another round would be good for LM, but I don't want to do it.

Now for the rest of my lazy results.

Smashville

Out of 258

Red: 69 (26.7%)
Yellow: 57 (22.1%)
Blue: 63 (24.4%)
White: 36 (14.0%)
Purple: 33 (12.8%)

Looked pretty close to standard, so I quit early. What can I say, short attention span

And my laziest work, I give you Corneria

Out of 126, so take with a grain of salt

Red: 29 (23.0%)
Yellow: 38 (30.2%
Blue: 24 (19.0%)
White: 16 (12.7%)
Purple: 19 (15.1%)

On this one, I averaged almost one yellow every three plucks, and one blue every four and a half plucks. However, with my short attention span again, I wasn't able to keep it going. This one DEFINITELY needs another look, since it combines a low ceiling with seemingly a lot of yellows. The perfect combination for some easy up-smash kills?

Again, I apologize for my low numbers, but I guess a little could be better than nothing?

 

[deepseadiva]

How exactly do you write down these numbers Geekd?
I'd help, but it seems like a hassle writing and tallying them up.

5 multicolored thumb counters?