LFF
From Board 8 Wiki
LFF, aka the Leach/Leech Fanbase Factor, is to 3-or-more way polls what SFF is to 1v1 polls in terms of impact. The basic idea is that whereas in a one on one situation between two characters sharing a fanbase the stronger character will make his weaker counterpart look bad, in a four way poll both characters sharing a fanbase will make each other look worse.
Here is a real-life example using two characters we know plenty about: Link and Cloud. In a 1v1 setting the result between these two the result would be
- Link - 54%, Cloud - 46%
Now let's add four more characters into the poll: Ganondorf, Zelda, Tingle, and Midna. The result would be something like this:
- Cloud - 42%, Link - 41%, Ganon - 7%, Zelda - 7%, Tingle - 2%, Midna - 2%
Even though he was given four opponents he can SFF nearly to death, the small amount of support from the Zelda fanbase that those four alternatives received "leached" enough strength away from Link to make up the sizeable gap between himself and Cloud, resulting in his second place finish.
The argument against LFF is basically, "but including non-Zelda characters would hurt Link way more!" While this is true, the point is that these new characters would also hurt Cloud way more, resulting in a win of comparable size to the original 1v1 matchup. Let's run an example using four new characters who don't share a fanbase with Link or Cloud: Snake, Dante, Ryu, and Kerrigan. That 6-way would end with this result:
- Link - 26%, Cloud - 23%, Snake - 18%, Dante - 15%, Ryu - 13%, Kerrigan - 5%
Yes, not being able to SFF his opponents hurt Link badly, costing him 15 percentage points off his old total. But having to compete against something other than the Zelda fanbase hurt Cloud far worse, as he lost a full 19 percentage points, well more than enough to cost him the victory.
[edit] LFF in the 2007 Character Battle
Round One
- New Square competition from Vaan (9.54%) holds Rikku (27.14%) back from advancing ahead of Knuckles (27.84%)
- Diablo (15.42%) and Arthas (15.67%) leach the Blizzard/PC vote from one another, allowing KOS-MOS (18.43%) to advance ahead of them
- Ryu (36.30%) blows past Bowser (28.62%), who was heavily Nintendo-leached by the surprisingly strong Mewtwo (24.95%) and also Toad (10.14%)
- in the following round Ryu topped Bowser again (26.16% to 24.07%), proving himself to be stronger in this format, but regardless, LFF made the R1 result more lopsided than it should have been
- Mario (57.91%) SFFs fellow old-school icon Pac-Man (10.11%) into the ground, but their shared fanbase allows Big Boss (23.00%) to look fantastic in comparison
- Donkey Kong (27.66%) gets pounded by Kratos (40.13%) after he and Marth (20.65%) hurt each other
- Ryu Hayabusa (45.80%) destroys Riku (27.24%), who was being leached by Roxas (17.67%)
- though no amount of LFF can explain why Ryu H outscored Riku and Roxas combined
- Squall (35.33%) and Aeris (25.48%) hold each other back, allowing Akuma (23.05%) to sneak up and finish closer to second than most expected
Round Two
- Sephiroth (57.11%) takes full advantage of there being three Nintendo characters (Fox 19.74%, Meta-Knight 13.19%, Wario 9.97%) LFFing each other to score an otherwise astounding R2 percentage
- Vincent (27.75%) sort of takes advantage of likewise facing three Nintendo opponents, but Bidoof (13.27%) refuses to crumble and Link (51.19%) remains untouchable, limiting the LFF damage
- Vergil (15.86%) uses triple Nintendo SFF (Ganondorf 31.06%, Luigi 28.11%, Mudkip 24.97%) to look slightly less pathetic than he deserved
- Ada (19.41%) gets Capcom-SFFed by Dante (43.41%), allowing Amaterasu (20.83%) to slip by for second place
- Vivi (21.73%) and Tidus (20.82%) ruin each others chances of stopping Pikachu (24.14%) from advancing to Round Three
- Donkey Kong (14.39%) looks awful, but nevertheless manages to leach enough strength from Kirby (24.81%) to allow L-Block (28.33%) to move on to Round Three
- With Roxas out of the picture, Riku (19.43%) takes full advantage of the lack of Square/RPG character to leach his strength, making up the entire distance between himself and Ryu Hayabusa (18.91%)
- Square SFF stomps a mudhole in Aeris (19.15%), to the tune of Squall (33.56%), Sora (29.92%); this also allows Lara Croft (17.37%) to look much better than she deserved
Round Three
- Yoshi (19.13%) leaches enough Nintendo support from Samus (33.10%) to keep her in danger of losing to Mega Man (30.43%), at least in the early going (though how much of MM's strong showing should be chalked up to pic factor is up for debate)
- An ugly SFF beatdown at the hands of Cloud (49.59%) keeps Auron (18.16%) from advancing ahead of Ryu (20.25%)
- Fox (8.06%) gets stomped, but nevertheless manages to make Mario (35.08%) look bad compared to Sephiroth (45.85%)
- Link (45.37%) pounds Zero (12.27%) into the ground (though he was certainly helped by FFF); the jury is still out on if Vincent's (21.78%) 2nd place upset of Crono (20.58%) was a result of Link's considerable influence
- With some help from pic(g) factor, Luigi (22.47%) advances ahead of Ganondorf (22.48%), with their pretty even split allowing Yuna (18.63%) to score a respectable total below them
- Dante (30.43%) and Leon (23.85%) shock the world by Capcom SFFing each other badly, allowing Pikachu (33.79%) to slip by for yet another win (as Okami was another Capcom title, some think Amaterasu's 11.93% should be forgiven because of triple Capcom SFF)
- Whether through "badass SFF" or casual appeal, Snake's (32.44%) presence allows L-Block (28.63%) to improve 10 points relative to Kratos (20.91%) and easily advance to Round Four
Round Four
- Mario (22.24%) refuses to let Link (36.42%) SFF him as badly as he did in the Battle Royal, allowing Sephiroth (31.48%) to hold up very well against the defending champion
- Pikachu's (18.22%) presence allows Dante (26.59%) to score an easy win over Luigi (23.07%)
- L-Block's (29.03%) old-school appeal sinks Sonic (21.63%) in relation to Snake(28.86%)
Round Five
Bonus Match
- Even the mighty L-Block (30.03%) is proven LFFable, as the presence of other silly options grants ? Block (41.41%) an easy win due to its Mario appeal
