Dataminer confirms that Bayonetta had placeholder data as early as patch 1.0.6

[The DanMan]

So I wasn't some crazy conspiracy theorist after all. "Most realizable character" and all the numbers they threw out in the last Smash Direct really were just vague PR wank to cover a character who had been planned since April.
 

Edited July 3, 2018 by The DanMan

[Anacybele]

So the ballot ended up being useless. That's stupid. The least they could've done was choose who came in second behind Bayonetta. :/

[eclipse]

Topic titles are like miniskirts - cover enough so the reader knows what the topic is about, yet be short enough such that the reader wants to see more.  Your title is the equivalent of a floor-length skirt.

In other words, please shorten the title.

[The DanMan]

1 minute ago, eclipse said:

Topic titles are like miniskirts - cover enough so the reader knows what the topic is about, yet be short enough such that the reader wants to see more.  Your title is the equivalent of a floor-length skirt.

In other words, please shorten the title.

Was trying not to make it too clickbaity, but it seems I ended up skewing in the opposite direction.

[eclipse]

Edited title's a lot better.  Still somewhat clickbait-y, but it can't be helped.

Final Tweet chain summarizes my thoughts.  It's a hell of a jump - perhaps Nintendo knew what kind of characters they wanted, and found a way to fit the ballot winners in.

[The DanMan]

2 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Edited title's a lot better.  Still somewhat clickbait-y, but it can't be helped.

Final Tweet chain summarizes my thoughts.  It's a hell of a jump - perhaps Nintendo knew what kind of characters they wanted, and found a way to fit the ballot winners in.

What other characters do you think could've had ZSS as a base?

And if they did decide to lock in basic character params right when the Ballot started, then that would still mean that they largely ignored the ballot and just went for the highest-placing guy with a big sword and acrobatic realistically-proportioned girl. 

[eclipse]

7 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

What other characters do you think could've had ZSS as a base?

And if they did decide to lock in basic character params right when the Ballot started, then that would still mean that they largely ignored the ballot and just went for the highest-placing guy with a big sword and acrobatic realistically-proportioned girl. 

As I have no idea how that ballot/Smash's internal references work, I can't say for certain.  And IMO it should stay that way - the words of one dataminer isn't enough to conclude anything.

[The DanMan]

11 minutes ago, eclipse said:

As I have no idea how that ballot/Smash's internal references work, I can't say for certain.  And IMO it should stay that way - the words of one dataminer isn't enough to conclude anything.

Well technically, it's two dataminers: someone else talked about it a year and a half ago.

 

[eclipse]

2 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

Well technically, it's two dataminers: someone else talked about it a year and a half ago.

 

To quote someone on something you know nothing about (I assume you're not a secret 1337 Smash hacker) is dangerous.  I'm skeptical, mostly because I'm not sure how the internal references work.  For example, is it possible to have someone with Ike's template, but be a woman?  Was there an internal name for these slots?

It's a lot of work for even more speculation about a game who I don't give many figs about.

[The DanMan]

12 minutes ago, eclipse said:

To quote someone on something you know nothing about (I assume you're not a secret 1337 Smash hacker) is dangerous.  I'm skeptical, mostly because I'm not sure how the internal references work.  For example, is it possible to have someone with Ike's template, but be a woman?  Was there an internal name for these slots?

It's a lot of work for even more speculation about a game who I don't give many figs about.

We had two hackers, one of whom was involved in the community, claim the same thing based on internal info. I don't see why they would try to deceive people, because others could easily catch them for it.

For templates, characters have to have roughly similar builds and abilities (since to make a new character they really just start with another character as a base and build/alter them from there). Google is failing me, but I've seen it claimed that Snake was built off of Gannondorf (which would explain him being a heavyweight despite having a slimmer model-- and they both have a CQC emphasis, though Snake has plenty of explosives while 'dorf has more enchanted attacks). Though I'll fully admit to not having a full undestanding of this, but have seen it talked about and treated as real enough that I have little reason to doubt it (much the same way I doubt a couple specific dataminers would try to decieve people over this).

As the first (or really, second) dataminer showed in their tweets data for Giga Bowser (due to the numbers I'd say it could be damage info for attacks), who was the last character in the list and got moved down as the DLC character's early info was added.

Though if you don't care, then why are you sticking around to talk about this?

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

Hm. Well if this is true, that's kinda sad. But I like Bayonetta and didn't even vote in the ballot, so I guess I'm not very invested.

[Water Mage]

Perhaps she was already planned as DLC and when they noticed that she was winning they decided show her as the “winner” of the ballot. That way they save time and wouldn’t have waste resources to create another character.

[thecrimsonflash]

well, that is a funny turn of events, I don't really think it hurts anything, but it does kind of sting that in the end it seems meaningless for smash 4 at least.

I guess they will use it as a template for future releases to gauge interest in certain characters and series

Edited July 3, 2018 by thecrimsonflash

[Captain Karnage]

My theory was the whole purpose of the ballot was to guage interest for the next game, as of late we know that Smash 5's development began pretty much after the release of the last bits of DLC for 4. Since no one has that data, nothing can really be said, though Sakuri during E3 said that they added Ridely because of his overseas support. So maybe it did have some influence. 

[The DanMan]

1 hour ago, Captain Karnage said:

My theory was the whole purpose of the ballot was to guage interest for the next game, as of late we know that Smash 5's development began pretty much after the release of the last bits of DLC for 4. Since no one has that data, nothing can really be said, though Sakuri during E3 said that they added Ridely because of his overseas support. So maybe it did have some influence. 

I agree; it's been said the JP site even explicitly stated that the Ballot info would used for future games.

However, the fact they tried to pass Bayonetta off as some sort of winner when she rather clearly wasn't is very questionable.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I'll say it before and I'll say it again.

The Smash Ballot was never promised to bring us the most rated character. Nor any character at all for Smash 4 DLC. From Day 1, they said it would be consideration for future titles. Do you have some kind of grudge against Iwata's tumor-ridden corpse? Saying Bayonetta ranked as highly as she did was pure PR. Not the reason for her inclusion.

So they had a character slot for a supposed fighter. Big deal. Brawl had seven unused character slots. And they clearly weren't serious about Toon Zelda and Toon Sheik since all that exists for them is a name. That's more than Bayonetta had in 1.06.

[The DanMan]

13 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

I'll say it before and I'll say it again.

The Smash Ballot was never promised to bring us the most rated character. Nor any character at all for Smash 4 DLC. From Day 1, they said it would be consideration for future titles. Do you have some kind of grudge against Iwata's tumor-ridden corpse? Saying Bayonetta ranked as highly as she did was pure PR. Not the reason for her inclusion.

So they had a character slot for a supposed fighter. Big deal. Brawl had seven unused character slots. And they clearly weren't serious about Toon Zelda and Toon Sheik since all that exists for them is a name. That's more than Bayonetta had in 1.06.

They set aside a clone of Zero Suit Samus' slot at the very start of the Ballot. Either they decided only a very specific type of character would get in, or they began working on Bayonetta before they had any real data from the Ballot. Any way you slice it, they presented the Ballot as something it wasn't.

As I said above, I fully agree that the Ballot was for future games. But the fact they hyped it up as having anything to do with Smash 4, only for it not to have anything to do with it and then try to pass off something seemingly unrelated as part of it, is what gets me.

Edited July 3, 2018 by The DanMan

[Zapp Branniglenn]

1 minute ago, The DanMan said:

They set aside a clone of Zero Suit Samus' slot at the very start of the Ballot. Either they decided only a very specific type of character would get in, or they began working on Bayonetta before they had any real data from the Ballot. Any way you slice it, they presented the Ballot as something it wasn't.

As I said above, I fully agree that the Ballot was for future games. But the fact they hyped it up as having anything to do with Smash 4, only for it not to have anything to do with it and then try to pass off something seemingly unrelated as part of it, is what gets me.

You are upset that something you had no proof would happen didn't happen. I know this is standard behavior for Nintendo fans but come on. It's been three years. You can let it go.

[The DanMan]

6 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

You are upset that something you had no proof would happen didn't happen. I know this is standard behavior for Nintendo fans but come on. It's been three years. You can let it go.

No proof?

The presentation specifically talked about letting you "directly let us know which character you want to see become the next Smash fighter".
If you want to argue that it was just vague PR and didn't mean anything in regards to Smash 4's DLC (despite what everybody assumed), the fact they tried to pass off Bayonetta as such confirms they knew exactly what people thought it would be.

I don't care about Bayonetta's inclusion either way and don't have anybody I'd want to see instead of for personal reasons; I'm just bothered that we seem to have an instance of horrendous PR and people are just okay with or outright trying to defend it.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

I don't care about Bayonetta's inclusion either way and don't have anybody I'd want to see instead of for personal reasons; I'm just bothered that we seem to have an instance of horrendous PR and people are just okay with or outright trying to defend it.

And yet nobody defended the terrible PR of FEW. Even though the pre-made Bayonnaise case one may be able to argue is worse.

[Florete]

27 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

they began working on Bayonetta before they had any real data from the Ballot.

Yeah, not quite.

One thing that always puzzled me was that they left the ballot open for so damn long. 6 months is way, way more time than needed. The results likely didn't see any notable change after the first week or so, if it even needed that long. And look at that, this patch was added two weeks after the ballot started.

I'm going to withhold my overall opinion on this information, but your statement above is patently false.

[Jedi]

The ballot is likely why Ultimates Roster goal was "bring everyone back" Snake, Wolf and the other veterans likely scored very well.

Bayo was likely more of a Sakurai choice although she did have some support during the games run. No one thought she was particularly possible.

[Water Mage]

47 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

 

As I said above, I fully agree that the Ballot was for future games. But the fact they hyped it up as having anything to do with Smash 4, only for it not to have anything to do with it and then try to pass off something seemingly unrelated as part of it, is what gets me.

Did they ever said that Bayonetta was the winner? If I’m not mistaken all they ever said is that she did very well on the ballot.

[Jedi]

3 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

Did they ever said that Bayonetta was the winner? If I’m not mistaken all they ever said is that she did very well on the ballot.

They mentioned tons of European support which began a meme of blaming them for Bayo after she became the dominant force she did.

Also her being stated to be the most "realizable" character was a bit vague

Edited July 3, 2018 by Jedi

[Water Mage]

1 minute ago, Jedi said:

They mentioned tons of European support which began a meme of blaming them for Bayo after she became the dominant force she did.

Oh yeah! Now I remember! It got pretty ugly(though considering the Smash fandom that’s no suprise), but I believe only the fans referred to her as the winner, Nintendo never did. Actually I think the whole “ballot winner gets in Smash 4” was something the fans assumed.