Head-2-Head-X / H2HX: Contest Wrap-up
- 24-September 24
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posix Online
With certain distance from the contest, it's time to look at the wealth of data the event has produced. The big picture allows to see a number of interesting facts that we felt were entertaining to pick out and present in a bit more detail.
To start, I've compiled a list of all parks of the contest, ranked by the panel score, very similar to how Jens J. had already beautifully done during the contest. In fact it could be said the table below is in collaboration with him. I've added a few things that were important to me: An attempt to better distinguish park type and player roles. I've semi-jokingly referred to this as "the algorithm" before, and I thought the H2HX parks would make an excellent trial case, as they include many of you and your parks, making me hopeful to receive your feedback.
This way of classifying parks is provisionial as of yet, but linked to the intention of establishing an improved categorisation on NE. I think a few aspects still need to be ironed out, but I do hope it'll help us to distinguish someone's main releases better, and give credit more adequately based on builder share. Thus allow me to go into certain detail on what it is you're being presented.
How is the data derived? -
— Separate Guests
In order to sharpen the focus on the main builders, we begin by separating all guests.
Two criteria are applied to determine guests:
- The builder share must be ≤ 5 %.
- The builder share must be half of the 2nd lowest share.
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— Park Types
To determine the park type, we look at the remaining builders and check for:
If one of the builders has a share of ≥ 80 %. This is in line with the parkmaker eligibility criterion.
If after guests there are exactly two builders remaining, and their shares are below solo level.
If more than two builders remain after guests.
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— Player Roles
To add credit detail to those who have done more on a park than others, we look at:
A lead role is given if someone's share is the highest, and if it is ≥ twice that of the second highest share.
A special case where the highest share is shared by more than one builder, but is still ≥ twice that of the second highest share.
The case of everyone who is neither a guest, lead or co-lead.
Exercised on all of the parks, we obtain the list below. One thing to regard: I have applied the weighted player points as tie-breakers for same scoring parks, where lower player point investments are ranked higher.
H2HX All Park Ranking # Score /
WTD PTS Team Round Park details93.50 2.9192.50 3.4586.00 3.5086.00 4.4585.50 2.7585.50 3.9584.50 2.2084.50 3.2084.50 3.9583.50 2.2883.50 3.0582.50 2.6482.50 2.8082.50 2.8682.00 3.5082.00 3.7982.00 3.8881.50 1.5580.50 2.0680.50 3.5580.50 4.0580.00 1.7580.00 3.3579.00 1.7579.00 2.9279.00 3.1078.50 2.6078.00 2.5277.50 2.577.50 2.6775.00 2.6074.00 1.3274.00 3.0572.50 2.7272.50 3.6567.50 3.7066.50 1.5566.00 1.95- 3.55×××
In the following, let's look at a curious few bits of data insights.
Best Underdog WinThis examines the most significant gap in weighted player points between two opposing parks, in instances where the team with fewer points was ultimately victorious.
# Winning park WTD PTS Opposing park Difference # 1 Cirque Macabre1.75 vs 4.05Sambhava's Rest − 2.3 # 2 Neo Hot Springs1.95 vs 3.70Ghirardelli's Dream − 1.75 # 3 Naam Chalong Suu Oom1.32 vs 2.72Wawel Castle − 1.4Cirque Macabre takes an extra sweet win here, as by virtue of the draft's wildness, Six Frags as the highest share builder here with 45 %, was a Round 10 pick (!), resulting in a player point value of just for him.
Also worthy of note here is that third placing Naam Chalong Suu Oom is the park with the overall lowest weighted player points of the entire contest, at just 1.32, but still won its match. It is thus the most economical win, the "Steal of the Contest", if you will.
Most productiveLet's look at the mere sum of shares a player has. Since captains are so busy beyond producing actual RCT during the contest, I thought it would be interesting to see who of them still did the most.
# Summed share Captain # 1 151 % Liampie # 2 150 % J K # 3 104 % WhosLeon# Summed share Player # 1 180 % alex # 2 171 % Babar Tapie # 3 151 % LiampieAn absurdly close top two placements among the captains, and an unbelievable statistic that both Liampie and J K have in theory produced one and a half parks for their teams, all by themselves. A deep and astonishing commitment to the contest, especially in light of neither two reaching the Grandfinal.
alex not only placing among the top 3 parks of the entire contest, but also proving to be the most productive of the season with almost two parks worth built for his team, he is a heavy favourite for the "Most Valuable Player" title in my eyes. Wherever his name pops up, superlatives follow.
Babar Tapie's showing here is extra lovely, as it comes mainly from his solo entered for the honorary 5th place match of the contest.
And Liampie is proving just to what degree he has developed the art of finishing parks with ease. It's truly remarkable he should rival a player such as Babar in H2H in terms of productivity, despite also being a captain.
Blowout vs NailbiterAs with every season of H2H, we find a spectrum of match turnouts. Let's look at the extremities of the event and compare the most chastening landslide wins against those that were nip and tuck.
# Match Relative Vote # 152 : 1 ( 52 / 1 )# 214.3 : 1 ( 43 / 3 )# 37.5 : 1 ( 45 / 6 )# 11.08 : 1 ( 28 / 26 )# 2Murder in McAllan vs Dambuster Home Video Presents: Buxom the Sunset Sorceress, and the Purple Haze at Castle Death1.11 : 1 ( 30 / 27 )# 31.12 : 1 ( 29 / 26 )The Screameasy brutal win here is pretty straightforward, given as it's the highest rated park of the contest and surely one of the parks of the year. It is also from the match-up with the biggest gap between the two parks, with a total of 36 parks in the ranking until its competitor Base X.
The case of the Hurricane's Ghirardelli's Dream is a ruthless one. While relatively close in panel score to its competitor with only a 1.5% edge, it would still just barely lose the match in what was the closest poll of the contest. To make matters worse, this was against the lowest rated park of the event, with the loss ruling out PlayOffs qualification, against a team that was already qualified. Sometimes luck is not on your side.
H2HX Awards While these statistical insights can be fun, the more meaningful achievement is the creativity beyond the numbers, the intangible that only you as an RCT audience can determine. So as is tradition, we will be doing contest specific H2HX Awards.
Since so many parks are easily among the best output of the year, it became clear to us during preparation that the overlap with the year end NE Awards would be significant. This means that any awards with too much overlap are handled differently this time. Please refer to the dedicated Awards Poll for all details to know, and make sure to cast your vote!
H2HX Awards Poll
Captains Roundtable This long post shall give its last word to our dear SSSammy, whose H2HX streams on our discord have been a real joy to follow and partake in. They've brought the community together in ways that are rare and special, thanks to Sam's personality and initiative.
His final stream of the Captains Roundtable is something we decided must be linked and presented to the contest here on the site, and hence it'll be added here. We love you Sam.
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— Separate Guests
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Six Frags Offline
Great presentation Posix! Love that you've put so much time and care into organizing this contest. It sure brought it to a higher and more enjoyable level!
On a side note; Can't believe H2HX already is over. This one flew by harder than previous ones in my memory. Quality was so high again, and love to witness all the new inventions that were made (like the plugins, invisible color usage and the new peep editor for example), and meta shifts in more landscape and theme-story driven concepts.
Well done everyone!
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Gustav Goblin Online
Huge ovations to you all for making this contest happen for 22 years now. The attention the admins put into it and what the community was able to create throughout was nothing short of inspiring. I'm still so honored to have been part of it, and I'll even say we were four votes or two swayed votes in finals from what I would call a perfect contest. Amazing team, amazing parks, amazing vibes. Cannot wait to see how what we pioneered in H2HX affects NE and OpenRCT2 going forward!
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chorkiel Offline
I've been thinking about writing a big gratitude post for H2HX, and this feels like the appropriate time and place to do it.
First of all, thank you to everyone who took part in H2HX in any way. This was, without a doubt, my favorite H2H so far!
According to my user tag, I've been around on NE for 14 years—that's literally half my life! Before and since joining, I've been part of various internet communities, but none for as long as I've been here. In fact, I've been part of NE longer than I've known a lot of my real-life friends. Over the years, this has truly become one of my favorite places on the internet. I love RCT as an art form, but it's the people here who make this community so special.
H2H has always felt like one of the main staples of this site. Even before it wraps up, people are already looking forward to the next. Every editions brings back so many people. I'm grateful to everyone who contributed in any way to this year's contest.
A huge thanks to the admins for hosting and organizing. You were always so quick to upload the parks after each deadline, and your communication was clear and open throughout. I also like how you injected fresh energy into the contest with the altered rules. Without you, neither this site nor this contest would exist. I hope you know how much the entire community appreciates your efforts!
But I'm also very grateful to the players who spent dozens of hours creating all these parks. It's not lost on me that that is your personal time. And while I’m sure you also do it for yourselves, I really appreciate how you try to wow the audience with every park!
A thing I enjoy about this community is the closeness we have with the creators. Something you don't often have with art. Thanks to Discord and the forum, we can hear directly from the builders about their ideas, building process, the fun you had working together and the way you were able to elevate each other.
Lastly I want to thank everyone who has been engaging meaningfully ith he contest. Whether it was extensive video) and thoughtful reviews, hosting minigames, or creating otherwise interesting discussions. Seeing how deeply everyone dives into the parks that the builders worked so hard on is something I truly love about H2H.
This H2H was insane in terms of quality. We saw parks that I never could have imagined 14 years ago when I first joined. The first H2H I experienced was H2H6, and thought the H2H's I don't think I ever really expected to see such an amazing, wholesome edition like this one. The lack of drama and focus on the parks was refreshing, and I loved every moment of it!
Thank you all for making this H2H unforgettable. And with that for making my time here so rewarding! -
CedarPoint6 Offline
Wild to see the Jazzcats with 4 of the top 7 parks. Absolutely phenomenal work to the team.
Great write up and stats here-- very much enjoyed reading it. Thank you to all who put in the effort to pull this contest together!
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Turtle Offline
As someone watching from the sidelines, this was so enjoyable. Massive appreciation to all builders, the quality was the highest I can remember and to come out of a 6-month stretch with 35 gold/design standard parks is so fantastic. You are all the lifeblood of this little corner of the internet, and I love it.
It's also worth mentioning a couple of things, at least from my vantage point - the general tone of the whole contest was way more positive than some previous contests, despite the stakes. There seems to be a real sense of community and people helping one another to further the artform, which makes NE a very positive place to be. Secondly, the admin team were flawless, despite either being in the contest themselves or just generally being adults with lives to live. It's easy to overlook when everything goes perfectly, but again it hasn't always been that way in the past. Love you guys.
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SSSammy Offline
i kept meaning to comment on this, but i kept getting swept up in the stats every time i opened the topic. excellent presentation and a testement to how valuable our admins are. outstanding as always
i am humbled by the mention, the streams have been a pleasure and im very glad that others were able to get someting out of them.
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Terry Inferno Online
Excellent array of parks overall; over half of them scoring over 80 is a testament to how incredibly good all of you have gotten at transposing your visions into RCT2.
I wish I had been in a place where I could have contributed more to my team this season. I did not know what the year would look like when I signed up, and I'm not sure that I would have had I known what the non-RCT world would look like over the course of the following months, but I'm grateful that I did; building the museum interiors provided a calm and consistent environment during a period that was anything but. No solo surrealist endeavors this time around, but I imagine I'll have plenty more fodder for that (as well as emotional energy) in 2027.
As a viewer, I was consistently blown away with the high quality of the rockwork round after round. NE has collectively reached a new tier of landscaping, particularly rockwork, and I love seeing how conscientiously everyone is approaching it now. When the rocks work, the work rocks.
Statistic you didn't ask for: 18 out of 39 parks include a coaster with the expanded giga set. Have we ever seen a steel coaster dominate a single H2H to the degree that the mighty giga has H2HX?
Just finished watching the captain'smountain mike'sround table. Would love to build with you as well sometime, Liam!
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From this, we can easily see who the top 3 players are at the site right now, as far as the H2H meta standard goes: WhosLeon, AvanineCommuter and alex. The first two even being on the same team should leave no surprises why the Jazzcats won the championship. It's even more so surprising that they were on the brink of missing the PlayOffs after Round 2. What is noteworthy to me here is that Alex has proven great success in spotlight building as well, an accolade that, unlike Leon and AVC, he has won multiple times, and in some of the most impressive fashion NE has ever seen.
Mr.Brightside711 is a discovery of the contest for me. Not only winning parkmaker status with his Maverick design, but also placing among the top 10 of the event. A certain disclaimer must be mentioned that the comparison between Spotlights and Designs is not something we typically do, for obvious reasons. But I can't help but notice his solo effort is the second highest of all six we saw this contest, second only to AvanineCommuter. Well played Mr.Brightside, I'm super keen to see new work from you.