Character Rankings Holiday 2016 Edition - Survey - Closed

Ebolamonkey84

Update: Voting is now closed. Results should start showing up Monday.

Hey everyone,

If you haven't participated in one of the earlier surveys, this is how it works.

You will rank each character on a scale of 1 (garbage) to 10 (OMGWTFBBQ). You can use whatever criteria you choose to rate them, but should try to consider usefulness for characters at their respective star levels, as the rankings should be useful to people at all stages of the game. You can also consider PVE, PVP, TU abilities, usefulness after passing their tier, health pack conservation, fun, etc. Characters will be ranked against others in the same tier using the average scores from all responses. I'll do an overall list for fun as well.

I have added an optional short answer comment for each character if you feel like adding a blurb. I will pull appropriate ones out for use in the subsequent results thread. I also have a few demographic questions that can be used to split the data out a bit more.

You will notice that the scale is from 0 to 10. All of the ratings are required, so use a 0 to indicate that you either have no opinion of a character or you don't have enough experience with them to make an educated choice. DO NOT use 0 as the lowest ranking, as all zeroes will not be factored into the average.

Here is the survey for the next round of character rankings: https://goo.gl/forms/4ULRLOMluEicifxD3

Why do you use a scale of 1-10 instead of having us rank the characters from 1-115?
That type of ranking is pretty accurate at both ends, but can get somewhat arbitrary in the middle. Ranking the characters on their own merits lets people know that even though a character may be 15th, they are still pretty decent.

I'm using Google Forms for the first time, so please feel free to give any feedback.

El Satanno

I am now taking bets on how many mouthbreathing yahoos will vote 0 for the usual suspects on the low end and/or rage votes.

Jaedenkaal

Long time reader, first time poller.

My only comments about the poll are regarding the 2* question at the beginning. I answered based on the highest number of 2*s I have ever championed, rather than who I actually have championed right now, since that seems to be more what you're interested in and since they're not the same at this time. Sorry Thor. I'm just using you for your ISO and HP.

Other than that the survey was great. For the 1*s and 2*s, though, I wonder if a flat ranking might be more appropriate, since there are a small and non-increasing number of them. I guess the worst 2* doesn't have to be a 1.

Fightmastermpq

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Long time reader, first time poller.

My only comments about the poll are regarding the 2* question at the beginning. I answered based on the highest number of 2*s I have ever championed, rather than who I actually have championed right now, since that seems to be more what you're interested in and since they're not the same at this time. Sorry Thor. I'm just using you for your ISO and HP.

Other than that the survey was great. For the 1*s and 2*s, though, I wonder if a flat ranking might be more appropriate, since there are a small and non-increasing number of them. I guess the worst 2* doesn't have to be a 1.

I ranked them as such. The best characters were 10s, the worst characters were 1s. Otherwise why have that level of granularity at all?

IamTheBiggs

Can I just say that it felt somewhat... cathartic... to finally to participate in one of these polls?

Jaedenkaal

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Long time reader, first time poller.

My only comments about the poll are regarding the 2* question at the beginning. I answered based on the highest number of 2*s I have ever championed, rather than who I actually have championed right now, since that seems to be more what you're interested in and since they're not the same at this time. Sorry Thor. I'm just using you for your ISO and HP.

Other than that the survey was great. For the 1*s and 2*s, though, I wonder if a flat ranking might be more appropriate, since there are a small and non-increasing number of them. I guess the worst 2* doesn't have to be a 1.

I ranked them as such. The best characters were 10s, the worst characters were 1s. Otherwise why have that level of granularity at all?

I guess that depends on what your scale is. Using your scale, you have less granularity to represent how much worse a character could be than they already are, or how much better they could be. Do your 10s mean that the character (s) is/are perfect? Or just the current best? If there were only 2 characters in a given tier, would one of them be a 10 and the other a 1? Did you feel obligated to give every 1* character a different rating? If so, which two ratings did you not use? If not, which rating(s) did you use more than once? Genuinely curious, I'm not sure there's a right answer here.

With enough responses I suspect it won't matter that our votes are using somewhat different scales, the trends should be roughly the same either way.

Pwuz_

Hope I didn't throw your classification questions into too much chaos by including my duplicate characters in my count.

I just can't let any of my 4* covers go, which is why my IW is currently at 3/2/10 split between two builds. If I pull another Green cover before I can get my main one championed, I'm gonna throw something though.

Fightmastermpq

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Fightmastermpq wrote:

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Long time reader, first time poller.

My only comments about the poll are regarding the 2* question at the beginning. I answered based on the highest number of 2*s I have ever championed, rather than who I actually have championed right now, since that seems to be more what you're interested in and since they're not the same at this time. Sorry Thor. I'm just using you for your ISO and HP.

Other than that the survey was great. For the 1*s and 2*s, though, I wonder if a flat ranking might be more appropriate, since there are a small and non-increasing number of them. I guess the worst 2* doesn't have to be a 1.

I ranked them as such. The best characters were 10s, the worst characters were 1s. Otherwise why have that level of granularity at all?

I guess that depends on what your scale is. Using your scale, you have less granularity to represent how much worse a character could be than they already are, or how much better they could be. Do your 10s mean that the character (s) is/are perfect? Or just the current best? If there were only 2 characters in a given tier, would one of them be a 10 and the other a 1? Did you feel obligated to give every 1* character a different rating? If so, which two ratings did you not use? If not, which rating(s) did you use more than once? Genuinely curious, I'm not sure there's a right answer here.

With enough responses I suspect it won't matter that our votes are using somewhat different scales, the trends should be roughly the same either way.

It's not a ranking of perceived quality based on an infinite possibility of better or worse designs - that would put everyone at a 5 planted firmly in the middle of "make a match and kill the entire enemy/friendly team" being the basis for receiving a 10 or a 1. It's a ranking of the current characters as they are across their tier.

It wasn't a force ranking either, so in many cases multiple characters got the same rating, and some ratings weren't given to any character. I think I had multiple 10s in almost every tier, but I'll wait until the rankings come out to discuss them as I don't want to skew the results.

Ebolamonkey84

Up to 162 responses so far. I will probably keep this open for another week or so. For reference, the last survey had 1150 responses.

Pylgrim

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

Up to 162 responses so far. I will probably keep this open for another week or so. For reference, the last survey had 1150 responses.

Was the previous one linked to from the General discussion forum? I certainly don't expect a thousand people visit this subforum.

rc35

+1 for the 'put a link on the General Discussion forum' (and ask the forum mods to pretty-please sticky it for a week or two)

Edit: Thank you very much Ebolamonkey84 for organising this extremely useful resource! And I'd be happy to put a link on the General page if you like.

El Satanno

I've taken your blasted survey! Now put it on the front page for the unwashed masses to defile!

DrStrange-616

Yay! I done been surveyed and I liked it!

Pleeeaaasse link to this in the General forum. I visit the boards regularly but just stumbled across the survey.

GrimSkald

You know what, I'll post a link on the General Discussion form. What the hey - if it's the wrong thing to do Ebola can yell at me in Alliance chat.

Punter1

Think you're missing the "no opinion" option or to skip characters on the rankings. There are a number of characters that I have solitary covers for so have never actively used to get a valid opinion about. I rated lots around 4-6 as an average "whatever" since I was unable to skip them. This may end up skewing your results somewhat as people are forced to vote on all characters even if they've rarely played with them.

I put all 5* at 5 just cos they are all of average use to me.

generalTsobot

Punter1 wrote:

Think you're missing the "no opinion" option or to skip characters on the rankings. There are a number of characters that I have solitary covers for so have never actively used to get a valid opinion about. I rated lots around 4-6 as an average "whatever" since I was unable to skip them. This may end up skewing your results somewhat as people are forced to vote on all characters even if they've rarely played with them.

I put all 5* at 5 just cos they are all of average use to me.

From the OP:

You will notice that the scale is from 0 to 10. All of the ratings are required, so use a 0 to indicate that you either have no opinion of a character or you don't have enough experience with them to make an educated choice. DO NOT use 0 as the lowest ranking, as all zeroes will not be factored into the average.

Hopefully you didn't rank anyone "bad" as a 0!

Jaedenkaal

Punter1 wrote:

Think you're missing the "no opinion" option or to skip characters on the rankings. There are a number of characters that I have solitary covers for so have never actively used to get a valid opinion about. I rated lots around 4-6 as an average "whatever" since I was unable to skip them. This may end up skewing your results somewhat as people are forced to vote on all characters even if they've rarely played with them.

I put all 5* at 5 just cos they are all of average use to me.

That's what 0 is for.

Tony_Foot

Didn't the last poll have a :

I have no experience with this character? I felt I was rating 4 stars that maybe I shouldn't have. I wasn't sure if leaving it blank was possible?

stochasticism

Tony Foot wrote:

Didn't the last poll have a :

I have no experience with this character? I felt I was rating 4 stars that maybe I shouldn't have. I wasn't sure if leaving it blank was possible?

Seriously? Read one post above yours.

Punter1

generalTsobot wrote:

Punter1 wrote:

Think you're missing the "no opinion" option or to skip characters on the rankings. There are a number of characters that I have solitary covers for so have never actively used to get a valid opinion about. I rated lots around 4-6 as an average "whatever" since I was unable to skip them. This may end up skewing your results somewhat as people are forced to vote on all characters even if they've rarely played with them.

I put all 5* at 5 just cos they are all of average use to me.

From the OP:

You will notice that the scale is from 0 to 10. All of the ratings are required, so use a 0 to indicate that you either have no opinion of a character or you don't have enough experience with them to make an educated choice. DO NOT use 0 as the lowest ranking, as all zeroes will not be factored into the average.

Hopefully you didn't rank anyone "bad" as a 0!

D'oh - I even re-read the OP before posting this last night as I thought it was weird not to have it! I'm pretty sure I didn't rank any as 0. My mind was making up a different interpretation of the "Do not use 0" somehow.

Nothing to see here, move along!

Tony_Foot

Punter1 wrote:

D'oh - I even re-read the OP before posting this last night as I thought it was weird not to have it! I'm pretty sure I didn't rank any as 0. My mind was making up a different interpretation of the "Do not use 0" somehow.

Nothing to see here, move along!

I did the same, might as well disregard my poll input. Double doh.