Return of the PM Character Survey

[Choice Scarf]

Welcome to my Project M character survey! Please redirect any comments, criticisms, and questions to this thread.

Long story short, PM went gold so now's probably a good time as any to see what people's opinions are about the characters before we go super deep into the meta.

This survey asks for your opinion on who you main and how you feel they perform, but in an arbitrary number ranking thing so that the spreadsheet can qualitatively compare them to each other. You may recall my first attempt from the survey over a year ago (see below if you really need to), but I was trying to somehow get character guides/powerpoint overviews of the characters from amorphous opinions and that couldn't pan out. But I left the questions that people seemed to enjoy in, just in a numerical way so that the spreadsheet is happy with it.

So anyways, please try it out! And as long as you save the editing link you can go back to edit your responses at any time! I'm curious to see what people love about who they play!

Survey Link - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1iN0A0VqJ450li2P0KfXlAkIGPq5iNydyKP3ajPMK-2k/viewform?usp=send_form

The results are structured so that you can see all of the answers in their convoluted spreadsheet form right from the get go, but you can use that to find other players by name, region, character, etc. in case you are curious of specific opinions. So far the pretty stuff you may care about are the attributes rankings and the MU chart. Due to how the formulas and responses work, I'll need to go in and update the results manually every now and then, so please be patient if they aren't displayed immediately.

Results Link - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AIExOxFrq5Gt80SKkdQh4Xx2dHw298BtSzhcDErqBpo/edit?usp=sharing

Miscellaneous stuff:

• This thread is obviously using the original thread for the original survey, so kindly ignore anything old and archaic here.
• All of the numbers are basically arbitrary so be mindful that averages may look funky. I'd eventually like to have some sort of weighting ability, maybe.
• The MU chart in particular is probably going to look weird but I'd like to keep it that way as a comparison to Aura's already stellar community MU chart. Mine just allows conflicting opinions on opposite sides of the match-up, which may be cool to look at.
• I'd like to eventually have a pretty spreadsheet for the questions with worded answers like the favorite stages/costumes/etc. If anyone knows how to get Google sheets to detect certain words let me know.
• Don't expect the wordclouds in the near future, they'll look dumb if not enough people answer them so it may take a while to get enough substance there.

Spoiler: Old Post

PM fans! I started a survey about the characters in PM v3.5 and got enough results and positive feedback that I'm continuing ahead with plans to make a general purpose character guide. The idea is to create a guide for the roster that everyone of all skill levels can understand, allowing broad analysis of trends among the characters, while providing more specific info and direction to said info for each character, all while working cohesively with already in place resources such as Smashboards and the PM subreddit. This will be based around community opinion, so you are welcome to share your opinions here, on related sites (such as the character treads here), or whenever more surveys come around. Hopefully we can see how far we can go with this type of resource (and test how effective this can be for the ultimate edition of PM) as well as provide as much accessible and transparent info as possible to push players to the forefront of the metagame.

The first character survey about first impressions on PM v3.5 has been closed, and I am currently undertaking the exhaustive process of processing everything into more digestible results. Feel free to check out my progress at the following links, or if you want to help out (which would only help get this out faster), message me for editor access!

Raw Data Results - Directly from the survey, this includes all community input on the first page, with workboard areas I'm using to process the data, make suitable charts, and so forth. If you're feeling brave, by all means go and see what you can learn. I'll try to keep it organized by character whenever possible.

Survey 1 (Preliminary Impressions of Characters) - Though the session is closed, you may still take the survey and give me more data, I just won't process it until the first batch is complete (this includes editing your answers from the first session if any)

Slideshow - This is where this particular survey's results will show up. You will be able to see general questions and data on each character once I complete them. I plan to prioritize whatever character is being discussed on the PM subreddit, though this hasn't happened yet so I'll probably go by most popular characters in the mean time since there's so much data there.

Meta Spreadsheet - A larger scale project, survey results will be aggregated here. The first page will primarily use the survey results to make a character guide for newer players to help chose mains and secondaries. Additional pages are included for MU analyses, charts, and tons of links for further reading on Smashboards. It will get bigger later on, just concern yourselves with the first page for now.

If you have any ideas on how to improve the survey or results presentation, or just want to discuss the results, feel free to comment.

Spoiler: Character Survey 1 Info (Original Post)

Hey PM Fans! I made a survey asking about the characters in version 3.5 and would like to collect data on the community's collective first impressions of the characters. It's about the character(s) you play and designed to get you thinking more about how they work with you as the player and the rest of the roster as fighter candidates. The primary goal is to provide compiled information that can help new players or players switching mains to find the right character, as well as try to find any patterns in the roster that can only be provided from a broader perspective.

The survey is [REDACTED CUZ OUTDATED]

Try your hand at filling it out whenever you have the time. I'll give about 2-4 weeks depending on how fast interest wanes before closing the survey so that you have time to better collect your thoughts while trying to keep them first impressions. There will be a lot of data, which I'll probably present somewhere by character once I figure out a good way of representing it all. Do try to keep your answers as reasonable as possible, but don't go too overboard at this stage as I'm hoping proper discussion can occur when the results come out. You can change your answers at any time in this period. And remember, the more people who fill it out, the less likely people will call shenanigans once those results come out (I hope).

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to post them below. I'll update the OP with tallies of how many surveys were completed per character so that you all know how much data there will be in the end. Thanks so much!

Spoiler: Survey 1 Character Spread (Obsolete)

Total Sample Size: 538
Unique Players: 505

Bowser - 15
Captain Falcon - 34
Charizard - 12
Diddy Kong - 6
Donkey Kong - 7
Falco - 16
Fox - 8
Game and Watch - 19
Ganondorf - 43
Ice Climbers - 4
Ike - 20
Ivysaur - 12
Jigglypuff - 4
King Dedede - 8
Kirby - 13
Link - 12
Lucario - 19
Lucas - 15
Luigi - 10
Mario - 10
Marth - 34
Meta Knight - 10
Mewtwo - 8
Ness - 15
Olimar - 4
Peach - 4
Pikachu - 8
Pit - 3
R.O.B. - 7
Roy - 32
Samus - 13
Sheik - 15
Snake - 13
Sonic - 14
Squirtle - 13
Toon Link - 11
Wario - 9
Wolf - 15
Yoshi - 10
Zelda - 11
Zero Suit Samus - 2

 

[Choice Scarf]

---------
Old Stuff

Spoiler: Old Stuff

Results Processing Progress (Updated 1/6/2015)

General roster wide info complete, plan to revisit player traits and playstyles later and try to find better way of representing data, such as via Venn Diagram

• Characters complete:
• Currently on:
• On Deck:->->->->etc.

Spoiler: Meta

Just improvement opportunities I notice and would like to fix at some point.

• Would like better pictures of characters, at higher resolution and perhaps flashier. Will look into different CSPs later
• Omissions of data that were allowed for attribute/AT/game phase causes lower relative stacked bars - averages are still accurate though, so may make this mandatory on next survey
• MU spread taking too much time trying to find best way of representing, as box-and-whisker plots don't seem to show volatility of opinions well after all. Will settle for averages and medians for now. If accuracy is needed more, I'll need to go back and implement weighted average based on tracked skill and discussion, but this is a tangential concern and will be addressed after the survey is processed.

Spoiler: Changelog (Survey 1)

Fixes during survey period

• Updated Specialist question to better explain the definition of specialist - A "specialist" refers to a player that has considerable knowledge and experience of a particular character. The player can focus solely on that character, be the best player of that character in a local or regional scene, or the most famous player of that particular character (for example, Sethlon is THE Roy). There greatest trait is that they are most likely at the forefront of that character's metagame (i.e. they are writing the book on how to play the character so to speak). If you feel this is too restrictive and you know or can play multiple characters at the same level, just answer "no".
• New optional For Fun question - "What is you favorite stage to play on as your character?" - If you don't want to update a previously filled out survey just to answer this question, you have no obligation to do so.

Spoiler: Critique Feedback

Still relevant if you have any further suggestions

• Results from Google Survey show up as a spreadsheet that can be shared, but is being withheld to prevent any users from changing their opinions based on feedback of the survey (any changes of opinion unconnected with the survey are still okay). This sheet is planned to be released immediately after the survey session is done, but the sheet lists the tags that players will be able to access. Pros to releasing sheets surmount to timeliness, as more digestible results will take time to create and may not be relevant by the time of release. Cons are that privacy of individual answers may be exposed, which can give leeway to opinion bashing at a personal level, though a counterargument would be that a player's tag is inherently public. For now, when released the tag column will be hidden as a deterrent, though it may not be completely effective.
• If a survey taker loses the link to the survey after completion, the player may not be able to change the answers of an already completed survey, despite technically being able to. To prevent wasting time, it may be better to message me and I can correct the changes for you. This is for your convenience as you would otherwise have to fill out the survey again.
  
• Forgot Crouch Canceling as a universal character dependent AT, will add as category for next round
• The "mentally demanding" question may be too vague, as this depends more on the players case-by case and may not necessarily be attributed to the characters themselves. Question could possibly be split up into many options: Intuitiveness to control, ease/difficulty of autopiloting, character involves some form of micromanagement (ie Olimar, ICs, Snake, etc.), strength/efficacy of mix-ups and baits, and so on. However, problem with this is newer players may not understand this questions even less, so there should be at least one question along the same lines that can apply to all levels of play. Currently still trying to think of one.
• Might have been a good idea to include something about why mains were kept? Rather iffy on this one.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

Oh **** I interpreted "specialist" as being one of the few people in your region who knows how to play your character ie people ask you about your character

 

[Choice Scarf]

Oh **** I interpreted "specialist" as being one of the few people in your region who knows how to play your character ie people ask you about your character

Actually, keep that, that's probably even better.

 

[ShadowGanon]

EDIT: Nevermind. I scrolled down.

 

[Choice Scarf]

If a user who identified himself as "Starman" is here, you put Lucario as your main, but I think you meant to put Luigi based on the rest of your answers. Just an FYI (I switched it to Luigi unless you really meant Lucario)

 

[ShadowGanon]

Is there some way for us to view the data?

 

[Choice Scarf]

Is there some way for us to view the data?

Edit: Whoops that probably didn't work. But on second thought, would it be better to keep this private for now so that people don't bash on each others' opinions? It's essentially private as it stands and it might be better to keep it that way. :/

 

[Regralht]

Edit: Whoops that probably didn't work. But on second thought, would it be better to keep this private for now so that people don't bash on each others' opinions? It's essentially private as it stands and it might be better to keep it that way. :/

If you take out the question that asks for their name, it will remove it from the results page. Although I guess that depends on whether or not you want that information, and if people want to see the results easily.

 

[ShadowGanon]

Edit: Whoops that probably didn't work. But on second thought, would it be better to keep this private for now so that people don't bash on each others' opinions? It's essentially private as it stands and it might be better to keep it that way. :/

Actually, when you first made the post it worked for me. Though, it was kind of messy and hard to read because it was in some sort of excel-ish format.

 

[Zujx]

Ill give this a go you did put a fair amount of time putting this together

 

[Choice Scarf]

If you take out the question that asks for their name, it will remove it from the results page. Although I guess that depends on whether or not you want that information, and if people want to see the results easily.

It may come in handy for a couple reasons, just only for me as the survey maker:

• can help identify players that list themselves as "Professional/Top Professional" and see if they are legit
  
• can possibly credit people who write particularly well constructed quotes when the results are made pretty
• can help keep track of individual opinions and changes to said opinions for an actual MU chart down the line

However, I'm still debating if this is even an issue, because a person's tag sounds like it should be something they are comfortable with anyway. And when I say "they won't show up in the results" ties in to:

Actually, when you first made the post it worked for me. Though, it was kind of messy and hard to read because it was in some sort of excel-ish format.

My plan is take this data and make something like a Google PPT that makes all of the info digestible, and that's where tags will not show up as the results will be averaged out and attributing the tags to the info wouldn't even matter. However, this will take a long time to do, and by the time I finish people may have changed their opinions if we have another 3.0 Mewtwo suddenly taking names or something. That's why I want to release the grid for timeliness, but I don't want to too early for a couple of reasons, the privacy reason being the most important. But again, no idea if this is even an issue as tags are kinda meant to be used publicly.

...I'm probably overthinking this.

 

[Soft Serve]

I re-submitted one for Diddy, I felt I rushed the first one. Both are submited as Softie.

 

[TimeMuffinPhD]

I re-submitted one for Diddy, I felt I rushed the first one. Both are submited as Softie.

Softie are you back to maining Diddy? :O

 

[Soft Serve]

Softie are you back to maining Diddy? :O

Yeah, wolf is still my favorite character but he messes up my Fox too much, and Diddy is a lot more fun this patch. Still going to have a wolf and be in the wolf boards/skype group constantly of course.

 

[Choice Scarf]

I re-submitted one for Diddy, I felt I rushed the first one. Both are submited as Softie.

So I opted the survey so that people could change their answers post survey, but I guess in practice if they want to go back to it later instead of immediately and lose the link that's impossible, huh? Cause I just tried that too and couldn't reload my own input... Welp, found the first flaw of this system

I can change it from the responses spreadsheet, so Sofite do you want me to delete your old Diddy one, or try to put your old free form answers together with the new wherever it's not contradictory?

 

[Soft Serve]

So I opted the survey so that people could change their answers post survey, but I guess in practice if they want to go back to it later instead of immediately and lose the link that's impossible, huh? Cause I just tried that too and couldn't reload my own input... Welp, found the first flaw of this system

I can change it from the responses spreadsheet, so Sofite do you want me to delete your old Diddy one, or try to put your old free form answers together with the new wherever it's not contradictory?

Just delete the old one.

 

[Phoenix502]

some part of me wonders if you felt curious about certain peoples' opinions towards their characters... in the event something piques your interest, I'm fine with clarifying any details you ask about on my submission... just figured I'd throw that out there.

 

[Choice Scarf]

Just delete the old one.

And done.

some part of me wonders if you felt curious about certain peoples' opinions towards their characters... in the event something piques your interest, I'm fine with clarifying any details you ask about on my submission... just figured I'd throw that out there.

I don't know what you mean by "certain" people, but I genuinely wanted to see the opinions of the community as a whole since my love for smash is unfortunately vicarious (I'm getting busy with grad school and there's like no PM scene in Albany).

I'm sure your submission is fine, just forgive me as I won't check it in detail at this time because you can still technically change it. I'm mostly concerned with errors right now, such as submissions that were sent in twice by accident, people who make critical mistakes (like say you main one char but describe someone else) or people who don't fill it in seriously (though thankfully I've only seen that once). However, once the survey session is over and I do find points about your answers confusing, then I'll let you know!

There is a particular overarching thing though, since you happen to main Pit. I was wondering why there weren't many Pits answering the survey, as he was the last character to get any representation in the submissions. With your submissions he's still only at 2. It only surprises me since Pit was so good last version. Did he get nerfed particularly harshly or subjectively poorly from the mains' perspective? (I didn't really get an impression from their threads)

 

[Phoenix502]

I don't know what you mean by "certain" people[...]

There is a particular overarching thing though, since you happen to main Pit. I was wondering why there weren't many Pits answering the survey, as he was the last character to get any representation in the submissions. With your submissions he's still only at 2. It only surprises me since Pit was so good last version. Did he get nerfed particularly harshly or subjectively poorly from the mains' perspective? (I didn't really get an impression from their threads)

I sort of had the impression that you would look through some of the surveys and perhaps be a bit confused about some of the answers given, particularly the ones that weren't multiple choice, maybe inquire for clarification

as for Pit... I wouldn't really be the one to ask. I do know his recovery got nerfed a bit in that the special glide expends all but one of your extra jumps. outside of a few tweaks to his regular attacks, a couple of attacks with updated animations and other technical stuff that i don't truly delve into, he feels essentially the same to me in concept... given I also use Charizard (who didn't feel different outside of the glide) and Zero Suit Samus (who got some sharp changes), it's more from a casual standpoint...

 

[RelaxAlax]

The life of Ganon ...

Holy moly 39 submissions. He is the most popular character lel

 

[Agi]

Went ahead and submitted one for Wario. Looking forward to seeing the finished product here.

 

[Espi]

Oh, this was posted on the PM subreddit. I really enjoyed enjoyed doing this survey. I think it's a pretty good idea.

 

[MudkipUniverse]

Everyone on here who started maining ganondorf with 3.5 will drop him.

stupid freaking people

 

[MLGF]

Since it's been a while, can we finally see the results?

 

[Choice Scarf]

Everyone on here who started maining ganondorf with 3.5 will drop him.

I hope to document whether the Ganon hype is real or not with more surveys in the future. Also keep in mind that I posted this to the subreddit too, so inflated numbers may be due to fanboying (probably also true with Falcon and Roy).

Since it's been a while, can we finally see the results?

Survey spreadsheet planned for Friday, better looking stuff in due time afterwards (I'll update this thread every time I finish a character). This is mainly to just satisfy my promise of "2-4 weeks" with the obviously minimum 2 weeks, and hopefully squeeze in some more submissions.

Though if you're super impatient and promise not to bash on anyone's opinions you can request access here.

 

[Luckerdog]

I think a question somewhere about play region would be helpful, if only so we can discover if there's a secret cabal of Jigglypuff players living in Seattle or something.

 

[JayTheUnseen]

I'm going to do one for Squirtle sometime soon;I've picked him up as a secondary.
(I've submitted one for Ivy,my main,already.)
I really support this idea!

 

[Choice Scarf]

I'm going to do one for Squirtle sometime soon;I've picked him up as a secondary.
(I've submitted one for Ivy,my main,already.)
I really support this idea!

Great! I know I said don't rush but that was two weeks ago and I'm going to close off the survey tomorrow, so get it in while you can!

 

[JayTheUnseen]

Great! I know I said don't rush but that was two weeks ago and I'm going to close off the survey tomorrow, so get it in while you can!

Alright,did it.

 

[Choice Scarf]

Survey results are up here!

It's google spreadsheet mode so it looks maddening, so I'm going to work on making it look better, slideshow style and better spreadsheet style. Let me know what you think of the results so far. Also I'm planning on doing this myself, but if you want to help with data entry (so that the results can come out faster) message me for editor access.

 

[ShadowGanon]

Survey results are up here!

It's google spreadsheet mode so it looks maddening, so I'm going to work on making it look better, slideshow style and better spreadsheet style. Let me know what you think of the results so far. Also I'm planning on doing this myself, but if you want to help with data entry (so that the results can come out faster) message me for editor access.

Just saying, pie charts = trash.

 

[Choice Scarf]

What do you think then? Bar charts? Plots?

 

[ShadowGanon]

What do you think then? Bar charts? Plots?

Bar graphs are probably the better choice. Scatterplots and boxplots can just be plain hard to read at times.

 

[Choice Scarf]

Alright. Mostly bar graphs now. The pie charts there are just place holders until I can find like a venn diagram maker or something

Other than that general character stuff is finished. And here's a bonus wordcloud just for kicks.

Edit: Ironically, by character this word cloud doesn't really work, so expect the individual to look a bit different

 

[Choice Scarf]

Double posting but whatever I have updates.

Updated OP with the links and the claim about my grand plan to get a character overview guide out there, but we'll see where that goes. I'm getting the impression that it may take around a full work-day to finish one character, though I'm still not done testing the process out on Bowser. For the overview portion I think most things have been covered at the moment. I'd appreciate any quality checks from any passionate mains if everything sounds right whenever a character gets finished, but I'll ask that every time it ACTUALLY happens.

Also, does anyone know how the hell Google Sheets does box-and-whisker plots? It seems needlessly complicated based on the info from here.

 

[ShadowGanon]

Also, does anyone know how the hell Google Sheets does box-and-whisker plots? It seems needlessly complicated based on the info from here.

Just opened up Google sheets to see what you were talking about, and yeah, Google makes making box plots ridiculously hard. What kind of data do you need a box plot for?

 

[Choice Scarf]

I was thinking of giving the MU spread whiskers since people could see exactly how spread the opinions are for certain match-ups. Long story short, I made the categories for the MU section correspond to a -3 to 3 scale and had been using that to average out the opinions on the MUs. But averages can be inaccurate if there is a huge difference of opinion. For example, the Bowser mains generally listed the Fox MU as either very hard or very easy, but it got averaged to even which doesn't really represent what most people said. Then you look at something like Bowser v Diddy and that looks much more in line with the opinions.

But then again, the current candlestick stuff looks dumb already (probably because there aren't enough data points) so I might just infer which MUs are most disagreed on and categorize it like that somehow else.

 

[ShadowGanon]

I was thinking of giving the MU spread whiskers since people could see exactly how spread the opinions are for certain match-ups. Long story short, I made the categories for the MU section correspond to a -3 to 3 scale and had been using that to average out the opinions on the MUs. But averages can be inaccurate if there is a huge difference of opinion. For example, the Bowser mains generally listed the Fox MU as either very hard or very easy, but it got averaged to even which doesn't really represent what most people said. Then you look at something like Bowser v Diddy and that looks much more in line with the opinions.

But then again, the current candlestick stuff looks dumb already (probably because there aren't enough data points) so I might just infer which MUs are most disagreed on and categorize it like that somehow else.

I might have an idea. Could you PM me the raw Bowser MU data for one matchup?

 

[Choice Scarf]

I sent you all of it on an excel file (email)