Full Choose Your Legends Data table sortable by year, title, total votes, average votes and voting percentage

[Jotari]

So we have a whole new round of voting for CYL which means I've been spending all day inputting numbers into forms so I can easily check who got what in which year without going to multiple websites. If you want to check any of this yourself, here is my spreadsheet

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15xCEE3dd2wjXVgzQS6mMWGya_M_tYRYMR5bcMC3qA5Q/edit?usp=sharing

This time around I've added some user friendly functionality. There's a drop down menu at the top of the CYLDataSortSheet tab that auto sorts by year, total votes and average votes. You will need to make a copy if the sheet yourself to edit this though by hitting File Make A Copy. Unfortunately I can't get that auto sorting sheet to colour code whether votes are going up and down.

Now, on to the actual numbers. Here is a bullet point list of interesting observations

*For the first time in the history of the contest we've had a units votes get split into two as now Three Houses Monica and Three Hopes Monica have different vote counts while they were combined last year. Which is awkward for my data collection.

*414,150 votes were cast this year, that's a slight downgrade from last years 430,944. From 2022->2023 we lost two hundred thousand votes, so losing just twenty thousand is pretty good. We will have to see if it can maintain numbers in the four hundred thousands next year though.

*You probably checked already, but Muston got last place. If you don't know who he is, he's a random Tellius Merchant. Funny they put the Tellius Merchants on the list but not the Engage merchants, despite Tellius having a huge cast and Engage a relatively small one. Like fellow Tellius alumni last year, Alder, Muston got one singular vote, which furthers my belief that the random voter encourages voting for characters with 0 votes as we've still never had that scenario.

*Relating to my recent thread about the gender division of CYL, there is none this year. The four highest voted units were the four winners.

*Edelgard remains the highest average vote count 74,617 with Gatekeepet close behind with 72,000. Considering Bernadetta, this year's overall winner got only 19,000, it's safe to say the player drop off means Edelgard will never be beaten (Bernadetta was also 6,000 votes higher than Alfonse, the second placer, so it was a pretty clean win for her).

*Marth retains the highest total number of votes across all years, getting 185,727 votes in the five years he was in it before he won.

*By total votes the most popular character who has never one CYL is Azura at 86669

*By average votes the most popular character to never win is Male Byleth at 112,77. Azura follows closely behind that in average votes too. Both Male Byleth and Azura have better voting Average than two actual winners Seliph and Soren.

*Felix managed to win this year despite getting fewer votes than last year, which was also fewer votes than the year. In other words, he's getting less popular as a character, but split votes and a lower voter count managed to let him win.

*Alfonse is the least popular character to win by Average votes by quite a bit. His average total is 6608 votes, which is lower than the following non winners: Yuri, Dorothea, Alear, Hilda, Ivy, Anna (Awakening), Yunaka, Tharja, Azura, Byleth. In an inverse of Felix, Alfonse has been getting more popular for the last three years. In fact, he got over twice as many votes this year than last year, which is slightly suspicious IMO.

*By total votes the least popular winner is Lysithia, but she only played for one year.

*The least popular Choose Your Legends character by both average and total number of votes is Lundgren, Lyn's grand uncle, having got 25 votes in four years for an average of 6.25 each year.

*The average number of votes between all characters available in all years is 1119 votes. This makes the most average character in the series Camus and Erk. Looking at just 2024, the average number of votes is 460 which makes Lumera the most average character of the year.

*Finally the Median (which is different to Average), by arranging all characters from highest average vote total to lowest average vote total, the character right in the middle and thus the most middling of all characters is Lambert, Dimitri's Father, with a respectable 382 average votes. And looking only at 2024, the answer is Naoise, Orochi and...Marty with their tied 113 votes, which is hilarious.

 

That's all I have for now, but tomorrow I'm going to work on making the sortable sheet have options to sort in ascending or descending order and also to sort by individual game. I encourage you to take a look at your favourite character and check if their vote totals are right. I have to input every single vote total from each year by hand to do this, and with so many characters with similar names or multiple versions it is easy to make mistakes, but there shouldn't be any major errors.

Edited February 2 by Jotari

[Humanoid]

Definitely easier to read than the other spreadsheet for my purposes, which is just seeing the raw vote counts. With the ridiculous way IS handles ties when ranking the heroes, it was hard to prove that there are actually no characters with zero votes: it would have been fascinating to see whether the website would have actually displayed the character with zero votes or if they'd just be left off completely.

We still don't know the answer because all characters are accounted for in CYL8, so that will have to wait until next year. Damn you Muston voter!

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Definitely easier to read than the other spreadsheet for my purposes, which is just seeing the raw vote counts. With the ridiculous way IS handles ties when ranking the heroes, it was hard to prove that there are actually no characters with zero votes: it would have been fascinating to see whether the website would have actually displayed the character with zero votes or if they'd just be left off completely.

We still don't know the answer because all characters are accounted for in CYL8, so that will have to wait until next year. Damn you Muston voter!

It was the curiosity to see if any character had zero votes and wasn't on the list that led me to compile it in the first place. I did so around February last year, I think. Made a thread for it at the time saying much of the same stuff as not a whole lot has changed in terms of total rankings. The biggest surprise is just how unpopular Alfonse is despite winning.

[Florete]

I saw a lot of rallying for Alfonse this year. He's definitely gotten more popular over the years. In the first few years of the game he wasn't too well-liked, with people often calling for other characters (especially Sharena) to get more of the spotlight, but in recent years that seems to have died down and people are gushing over him a lot.

I've been skipping the story the past few years, in large part because I don't like Alfonse, so I don't understand where it's all coming from, but his win was not surprising to me.

[Humanoid]

I haven't read any of the main story since the Hel arc, but I see the memes about Alfonse's newfound ruthlessness. I guess he's drifting towards the Hector and Ephraim end of the spectrum instead of the Marth and Eliwood peacenik types? Actually the comparison probably isn't quite accurate, Alfonse is now being seen as a ruthless, cold-blooded killer unlike those hotheads.

Another possibility was the meme factor in that his Japanese VA was supposedly cancelled for having an affair, and people wanted to vote him in to see if what IS would do about voicing CYL Alfonse.

Edited January 31 by Humanoid

[Florete]

I did catch this part of the new book, which even I as an Alfonse disliker have to admit is pretty funny.

Not many lords would react so coldly.

[Othin]

Great finds!

Out of curiosity, I calculated the percentage of votes that went to Felix over the past few years. In 2022, he got 19117/611762=3.12%. In 2023, he got 16365/430944=3.80%. In 2024, he got 11612/414150=2.80%. So his relative popularity did increase from CYL6 to CYL7, then dropped in CYL8 after he got his regular version, but he won anyway due to weaker competition.

[Tybrosion]

17 minutes ago, Florete said:

Not many lords would react so coldly.

To be fair, most other lords don’t have entirely new conflicts popping up like every week. Alfonse being done with all of this bullshit at this point was just inevitable.

I’m pretty sure Alfonse was also very nonchalant about having to kill Kvasir. And then, of course, there was his whole “I’m going to kill you too” bluff to Letizia.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Humanoid said:

I haven't read any of the main story since the Hel arc, but I see the memes about Alfonse's newfound ruthlessness. I guess he's drifting towards the Hector and Ephraim end of the spectrum instead of the Marth and Eliwood peacenik types? Actually the comparison probably isn't quite accurate, Alfonse is now being seen as a ruthless, cold-blooded killer unlike those hotheads.

Another possibility was the meme factor in that his Japanese VA was supposedly cancelled for having an affair, and people wanted to vote him in to see if what IS would do about voicing CYL Alfonse.

I have not noticed Alfonse acting particularly brutal. That being said, while I read the story, I don't put much emotional stick in it. Last year's Gullveig one in particular was all new heights of "meh".

3 hours ago, Othin said:

Great finds!

Out of curiosity, I calculated the percentage of votes that went to Felix over the past few years. In 2022, he got 19117/611762=3.12%. In 2023, he got 16365/430944=3.80%. In 2024, he got 11612/414150=2.80%. So his relative popularity did increase from CYL6 to CYL7, then dropped in CYL8 after he got his regular version, but he won anyway due to weaker competition.

Percentage of the total number of votes is an interesting way of looking at it, and I bet I could implement it on my chart pretty easily. Were you using my numbers for the total number of votes each year or have you counted elsewhere?

Edited January 31 by Jotari

[Othin]

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I have not noticed Alfonse acting particularly brutal. That being said, while I read the story, I don't put much emotional stick in it. Last year's Gullveig one in particular was all new heights of "meh".

Percentage of the total number of votes is an interesting way of looking at it. I wonder, and I bet I could implement it on my chart pretty easily. We're you using my numbers for the total number of votes each year or have you counted elsewhere?

I used your numbers. And yeah, that would be a really interesting thing to look at more, which should be pretty simple to generate with spreadsheet formulas.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Othin said:

I used your numbers. And yeah, that would be a really interesting thing to look at more, which should be pretty simple to generate with spreadsheet formulas.

Alright, I managed to implement a percentage based option for the sorting tab. This reveals that, while Edelgard has the best voting average of any character, the best character by % of votes is Gatekeeper, who had a whopping 10.4% of the votes 2021. Marth, having the highest voting total naturally also has the highest voting % of the total at 2.67% of all votes cast in eight years. And, consequently, Lundgren our resident loser of CYL has the lowest voting average and total with a pathetic 0.0011% of all votes.
 

Edited February 1 by Jotari

[Othin]

25 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Alright, I managed to implement a percentage based option for the sorting tab. This reveals that, while Edelgard has the best voting average of any character, the best character by % of votes is Gatekeeper, who had a whopping 10.4% of the votes 2021. Marth, having the highest voting total naturally also has the highest voting % of the total at 2.67% of all votes cast in eight years. And, consequently, Lundgren our resident loser of CYL has the lowest voting average and total with a pathetic 0.0011% of all votes.
 

Fascinating!

Highest average vote percentages, with CYL winners in bold:

1. Gatekeeper (10.44%)
2. Edelgard (6.80%)
3. Dimitri (6.33%)
4. Claude (5.45%)
5. Ike (4.03%)
6. Gullveig (3.93%)
7. Lyn (3.90%)
8. Lysithea (3.87%)
9. Lucina (3.78%)
10. Marth (3.71%)
11. Byleth F (3.46%)
12. Bernadetta (3.28%)
13. Marianne (3.07%)
14. Chrom (3.01%)
15. Hector (2.72%)
16. Camilla (2.71%)
17. Veronica (2.55%)
18. Eirika (2.49%)
19. Felix (2.48%)
20. Yunaka (2.42%)
21. Roy (2.27%)
22. Micaiah (2.22%)
23. Alm (2.22%)
24. Ivy (2.19%)
25. Alear F (2.01%)

That's everyone with an average of at least 2%. Yunaka has the highest of the non-winners, with Ivy and Alear F joining her on this list. The winners not to make the cut are, in order: Ephraim, Corrin F, Celica, Robin M, Eliwood, Tiki A, Soren, Robin F, Seliph, and Alfonse.

Interesting trivia: it looks like Chrom is the only character to have an instance of getting over 5% of the votes without winning, in 2021, and therefore is the only character to get over 5% of votes multiple times.

Edited February 1 by Othin

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Othin said:

Fascinating!

Highest average vote percentages, with CYL winners in bold:

1. Gatekeeper (10.44%)
2. Edelgard (6.80%)
3. Dimitri (6.33%)
4. Claude (5.45%)
5. Ike (4.03%)
6. Gullveig (3.93%)
7. Lyn (3.90%)
8. Lysithea (3.87%)
9. Lucina (3.78%)
10. Marth (3.71%)
11. Byleth F (3.46%)
12. Bernadetta (3.28%)
13. Marianne (3.07%)
14. Chrom (3.01%)
15. Hector (2.72%)
16. Camilla (2.71%)
17. Veronica (2.55%)
18. Eirika (2.49%)
19. Felix (2.48%)
20. Yunaka (2.42%)
21. Roy (2.27%)
22. Micaiah (2.22%)
23. Alm (2.22%)
24. Ivy (2.19%)
25. Alear F (2.01%)

That's everyone with an average of at least 2%. Yunaka has the highest of the non-winners, with Ivy and Alear F joining her on this list. The winners not to make the cut are, in order: Ephraim, Corrin F, Celica, Robin M, Eliwood, Tiki A, Soren, Robin F, Seliph, and Alfonse.

Interesting trivia: it looks like Chrom is the only character to have an instance of getting over 5% of the votes without winning, in 2021, and therefore is the only character to get over 5% of votes multiple times.

Well he would have won that year if not for the sexism. He was third overall having more votes than both the female winners and only didn't get in because his male competition was Marth with full backing of years of almost winning and Gatekeeper with full backing of the meme.

Also, some additional points on playable characters

*The most popular character by total votes not in the game is Ashe (though he has a seasonal). Meanwhile Yunaka is the most popular character not in the game by Averages (though I'm sure that will change by the next CYL banner)

*The least popular character by total votes and averages in the game is Ludveck, though Kronya disguised as Monica is lower on the list due to the awkwardness of how her votes have turned out, still not sure how to handle that in long term.

Edited February 1 by Jotari

[Jotari]

Update. I've added a by game section to the drop down menus which lets you see how all the characters from the same title were ranked each year (Archanea, Tellius and Fodlan are not split by game). For now, it only works with vote numbers and not voting percent due to the way my named spaces are set up.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15xCEE3dd2wjXVgzQS6mMWGya_M_tYRYMR5bcMC3qA5Q/edit?usp=sharing

[Othin]

28 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Update. I've added a by game section to the drop down menus which lets you see how all the characters from the same title were ranked each year (Archanea, Tellius and Fodlan are not split by game). For now, it only works with vote numbers and not voting percent due to the way my named spaces are set up.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15xCEE3dd2wjXVgzQS6mMWGya_M_tYRYMR5bcMC3qA5Q/edit?usp=sharing

Neat! How do you view that? I've been poking around the sheet and couldn't figure it out.

[DefyingFates]

On 1/31/2024 at 9:39 PM, Jotari said:

I have not noticed Alfonse acting particularly brutal. That being said, while I read the story, I don't put much emotional stick in it.

I wouldn't say he's "ruthless" or "brutal", but he's gotten a lot more pragmatic as time goes on which I in particular have found quite entertaining, for what it's worth. In any case, thanks so much for all this, it's amazing!

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Othin said:

Neat! How do you view that? I've been poking around the sheet and couldn't figure it out.

Since I don't want anyone messing up the data on the sheet, you need to make your own copy. Once you do it should be very easy to just change the drop down menus on the CYLDataSortSheet Tab.