Head-2-Head-X / The History of H2H: H2H2

  • Liampie%s's Photo
    To celebrate ten editions of Head-2-Head, I am diving into the history of the contest, looking at (in)famous matches, scandals, memes, myths, trends and statistics, with one extensive write-up per season. These will be posted during the weeks leading up to Round 1.

    The History of Head-2-Head: H2H2

     

     

    iris wrote:
    We are now slow, we are waiting. As Chauncey said, I believe that about 95% of the people who were awesome with rct1, basically suck ass with RCT2. I'm waiting for some change in that.

    H2H2 was being planned even during the last stage of H2H1, and a draft occured in September 2002. The captains were Iris, Fatha', Nessy: Ride of Steal, Chauncey Gardner, Foozycoaster and Tony ('Kumbamaster') - replacing Adix who dropped out just after the draft. However, with the prospect of RCT2 dropping in October, the contest was kept on hold to give everyone time to purchase and get to learn RCT2. Initially, the widespread notion was that everyone who was great at RCT1 sucked at RCT2. A second draft was held in December, but there was still ongoing discussion over whether the contest should allow for RCT2 entries. Finalised teams dropped the 24th, but because of further stalling it wasn't until February that the contest was officially kicked off. The struggle for RCT2's emancipation became one of the contest's main themes.

     

    H2H still operated using 'divisions'; meaning the six teams were divided in two divisions, North and South. The teams changed a bit over the course of the contest. Below you will find the teams as they stood at the end of the contest. A lot of usernames have also changed in the mean time; contemporary names are between brackets. Italised names ended up not building anything.

    Sea Serpents Nessy: Ride of Steel RRP Roomie (roomraider) Raven-SDI Sboarder Twisted JiMeMo Foozycoaster Maverick The Hive Kyle
    Soutenours Tony (Kumbamaster) x-sector Ozone Prince Gigaforce bokti (Harakiri) The Drizzle (BioHaZard) RCTFlame Shortdude Blind Guardian Nitrous Oxide
    Mean Green Fatha' natelox Butterfinger Themeparkmaster Drew (Generation X) Sanctuary Dragoninferno Cap'n Quack vTd
    The Drizzle wrote:
    w00t...go...uh...*checks the topic again*...Spente La Salle ??? lol...well yeah, name doesn't matter.
    Tony wrote:
    Spente Le Stelle is no more! We are now the The Souteneurs! Change our team name when you're back. Thanksie:)

    In the North division, Nessy captained the Sea Serpents, a team that seen as quite weak despite having superstar RRP. Tony, who took over from Adix in September, captained for Spente La Salle, a team name obviously no one liked. They soon changed their name to The Soutenours, which is only a bad name if you look up what that word means. Name issues aside, the team looked strong with multiple proven parkmakers, such as x-sector and Harakiri. The third team in this division was Fatha's Mean Green. Fatha' came out of H2H1 on a hot streak and expectations were high, sustained by a strong roster, with most notably natelox and Butterfinger on board. Themeparkmaster was a newcomer who would proceed to do a great job of supporting the main guys. The lower half of the roster was less impressive, however.

    Icons iris PyroPenguin Corkscrewed Coaster Ed Mantis Ablaze (Mortician) Scarface Foozycoaster Foltzenator rctfreak2000 Stargazer
    Blue Meanies cg? Evil WME Micool jhoffa Roberto Roboparks TXCoasterGuy1 KaiBueno thorpedo rctfreak2000 DippyDoodle Blitz
    Pufferfish posix Toon aero21 Midnight Aurora Nitrophobia The Judge Hyper Helix Creator Steel Falcon Vert

    Iris returned to fight for his second championship, drafting a superstar team on accident (or perhaps 'accident'), with even the less highly regarded names growing out to be superstars through achievements inside and outside of H2H, ending up with 8 (!) NE Parkmakers on his team. The Blue Meanies were this H2H's 'weird team', with a bunch of off-beat parkmakers, questionably captained by an immature Chauncey Gardner. Thorpedo was later added to the team. Lastly there was the Pufferfish, captained by posix who jumped in to replace a once again disappeared Adix. Like the animal the team was named for, its status would grow from something middle of the road underwhelming into something bigger and better and well respected.

     

    Each team facing teams from the other division once and teams from the same division twice, for a total of 7 matches. Two teams from each division would advance to the play-offs. The matches were spread out over 10 weeks, meaning every team had three 'bye' weeks in which they did not have to submit anything. The word 'week' was a poor choice, since they did not correspond with actual weeks, but the schedule (as far as it existed) was also adjusted multiple times at iris' whims. The Week 1 deadline was February 22nd, but the first match was posted on March 1st. The following rounds debuted on March 12th (R2), March 24th (R3), March 31st (R4; running until April 15th), May 8th (R5), May 22nd (R6), June 14th (R7), June 30th (R8), August 10th (R9) and August 27th (R10). Guess when the play-offs were held, and find out the answer while reading the rest of this text.

     

    JBruckner wrote:
    Yeah, the RCT2 one sucked. Come on, you are giving the game a bad name. Wow.....

    Week 1 started with a close match between The Icons' Elfwood, and The Pufferfish' Horstmann Laboratories. In classic H2H fashion, the comments were full of hostilities, and a surge in the number of votes raised questions on who all these people voting were. In the end, the Pufferfish narrowly received the win, getting 51 out of 99 votes. Until the play-offs, no match would receive more than 67 votes in total... The other match went between The Mean Green's Corozal (by natelox and Themeparkmaster) and The Soutenours' Evanescence. Evanescence got eviscerated and was quickly forgotten. However, the match was a historical milestone. Evanescence was the first RCT2 park in H2H ever!

     

    Corozal by The Mean Green
    Evanescence by The Soutenours

     

    Coaster Ed wrote:
    I'd say h2h2 is off to a great start so far. [...] The anonymous thing is fun and I love the overview shots this time, very cool.

    Iris applied a few changes to the H2H format since H2H1. Marginally more effort was put into the presentation, with aerials on display in the opening post, and the creators of a park being kept anonimous until the match was closed. However, open speculation of who made what and covers being blown by heated discussions was a regular occurance, for example in Week 2's Icons versus Blue Meanies. The Icons came up with Erwindale Forest by Coaster Ed and mantis, a high concept park with elaborate hacks, initially not as warmly received as it was remembered later. The Blue Meanies submitted IsoMania, a simple RCT2 park mainly by Evil WME. Coaster Ed, thought of as a beacon of eloquence, lashed out at some of the comments, outing himelf as a creator. Ironically, cg? (contemporarily known as Chauncey Gardner) as captain of the Blue Meanies didn't even know who built on their park.

     

    Coaster Ed wrote:
    Alright, who made Purple Pill Heights? Toon Towner I suspect you were involved. The Judge maybe? Fess up. Amazing work whoever made it. Absolutely stunning in every way. I'm still blown away by all the great use of objects. The stairs on the buildings, the columns, and that's barely scratching the surface. RCT2 has officially arrived. Sorry team Grinch but nobody can compete with that.

    The other two matches were less eventful, but no less interesting. The Mean Green faced (and lost to) the Pufferfish in the first all-RCT2 H2H match-up, in which Toon and The Judge impressed with Purple Pill Heights. This was the first park to succeed in the RCT2 aesthetic, breaking free of RCTLLisms, and even incorporating some early custom scenery such as the quarter block, eventually resulting in the park receiving second place in the Best Park category of the H2H2 awards despite already having been overtaken by other more advanced RCT2 parks that were still to come at this point. Ozone and The Drizzle/BioHaZard also dabbled in RCT2 with Tumbleweed Frontiers for the Soutenours, not entirely unsuccessfully, but their opponent's park Khalma Cove won the match comfortably, showing that going RCT2 was still a risky strategy. Admirable RCT2 efforts were no match for classic strong LL made by big names such as RRP (with Nessy).

     

    Tony wrote:
    Oh, yay! How fun is this? I'm quitting H2H...Giga, you can be the captain or whatever. I'm tired of iris' shit. I just gonna quit NE. That'd be even better! It's not like I play this stupid game anymore, anyway. Whatever.

    It was around this time that the Soutenours underwent a change of management with Kumbamaster/Tony quitting, and GigaForce taking over as the de jure leader of the team (and later in turn succeeded by x-sector).

     

    Erwindale Forest by The Icons
    Purple Pill Heights by The Pufferfish
    Tumbleweed Frontiers
    Khalma Cove by The Sea Serpents

     

    cg? wrote:
    What the fuck did I do wrong? It isn't my fault none of you lazy bitches finished anything! Blame the idiots who were supposed to go this week, and all the other idiots on our fucking team!
    posix wrote:
    You are responsible for people to "get their lazy asses" to work. Do you think you're the only captain who has this problem? I can assure you, you're not.

    Week 3 was a fun round, with only one match scheduled between The Soutenours and the Blue Meanies. In the last round, Chauncey Gardner already admitted to not knowing what his team was up to, but if you think that is bad for a captain... It was about to be worse. Simply said, The Blue Meanies did not submit a park at all, giving the Soutenours a win by forfeit. On the one hand, it was a waste of the the x-sector-led park Valley of the Kings, which was a one of the best parks of H2H2 so far. On the other hand, it made this victory feel less cheap; they may have won this match anyway.

     

    Week 4 had two strong RCT2 vs RCTLL matches; with the Sea Serpents getting a LL win with Falcon's Ridge, and the Icons getting an RCT2 win in a clash of titans: PyroPenguin's El Dorado versus Fatha's Maui Xtreme Resort. A third Week 4 match was once again decided through a forfeit, and once again it was due to horribly amateuristic communication on The Blue Meanies, giving the Pufferfish a free win their third in a row...

     

    In a similar fashion, The Mean Green failed to produce a park in Week 5, giving the Sea Serpents their third win, and giving the Mean Green something to talk about internally. Suggestions to iris to communicate the deadlines better were brushed off as unnecessary 'spoon feeding'. Week 5 also saw a successful and match between The Icons and The Pufferfish, with a posix-led LL park called Anuradhapura narrowly losing to Corkscrewed's Ville des Lumières, which leaned more into the RCT2 aesthetic with heavy use of pirate wall pieces and custom scenery, showing the rapid advance of the game. After this round, both teams were tied with a 3-1 win-lose record.

     

    Valley of the Kings by The Soutenours
    El Dorado by The Icons
    Anuradhapura by The Pufferfish
    Ville des Lumières by The Icons

     

    The classic era of NE only lasted a few more years, but in retrospect it looks huge. One possible explanation for this is that these times were just extra eventful, with sometimes multiple contests happening at the same time. H2H certainly wasn't as all-encompassing as it is nowadays. The effects of this started to be noticable during Week 6, which saw little engagement, despite the miracle of The Blue Meanies submitting a park again. Their match against The Sea Serpents was simply not very inspiring, with two low quality parks. A solo RCT2 park by Raven-SDI gave the win to The Sea Serpents, already securing them a play-offs spot with their 4-0 W-L record. Similarly, in the other division, The Blue Meanies now had a terrible 0-4 W-L record. The other match was of somewhat higher quality, in which a solo LL park by Ozone beat an RCT2 duo from The Mean Green; an important second win for the Soutenours, but a devastating fourth loss in a row for The Mean Green.

     

    Now that the Blue Meanies had discovered how to submit a park on time, in Week 7 they learned how to win matches: lean into the weirdness. With 34 against 33 votes, their Othello made by KaiBueno and Micool won against The Icons' Celestial Adventures which looked anything but celestial. Othello played on the notion that it's both a board game and a play by Shakespeare. The park comes with a Mattel and a Shakespeare version; the former a giant tall glass box with the board game on top, the other one has the glass board game removed showing the park. The kindest way to describe the park is that it's forgettable, but it stands out in this contest because it's so high concept and because it comes in two versions - something we'd see more of in later H2Hs.

     

     

    Caddie Gone Mad wrote:
    The Legend of Leviathan, for it is RCT1. I like RCT1 better.
    Brent wrote:
    That has GOT to be the lamest excuse ever. period. Did you even look at MFP in-game? It's incedible how great the architecture is. The rides themselves have seriously kick ass layout with magnificent custom supports, where put on.
    Caddie Gone Mad wrote:
    Why should I? Because you tell me to? Fuck off, I hate RCT2.

    The second match this week was of higher quality. The Pufferfish got their second win, with a park based on an episode of The Simpsons, that showcased some of the progress that had been made in RCT2. Maude Flanders' Praiseland was typical aero21 work, with a lot of path and an almost pavillion-like patchwork of different themes and ideas. Aero had won the first RCT2 spotlight just a few weeks before. Toon, being a pioneer of RCT2 architecture and custom scenery, joined him on Praiseland. Together they were perhaps the ideal duo to take a stand against the LL lobby. The Soutenours' Legends of Leviathan by Ozone and Prince was well received, but also criticised for a lack of originality and the main coaster having two cobra rolls. This onfortunate match-up may have cost them the season.

     

    Othello by The Blue Meanies
    Maude Flanders' Praiseland by The Pufferfish

     

    Stargazer wrote:
    I have no idea how the person who made the Battlefield RCT did it, but it has to be the most impressive thing I have ever seen, does Iris allow mini's on the list?
    mantis wrote:
    Safe to say I couldn't believe my eyes and still can't. This is an experience. This is a minipark that I can spend more time getting absorbed in that many megaparks. 200+ rides of pure unadulterated fun.

    The Blue Meanies continued their upwards trend in Week 8, with their second win against the otherwise well functioning Pufferfish. Jhoffa and thorpedo's Psychedelica lived up to its name with unfathomable bright objects spam, which could be considered creative and out of the box. A successful strategy in H2H2. Results from the other match eliminated the team from a chance of proceeding to the play-offs though... If Psychedelica was a 7/10 on a scale of creativity, then what came next was at least a 30/10. Coaster Ed, now paired with Scarface managed to outhack his Erwindale Forest with Battlefield RCT. Somewhat chaotic and cluttered in its layout, it rewarded those who took the time to properly explore the map in detail, as it contained dozens of cleverly hacked vehicles such as ships, helicopters, tanks, and other things you might see on a battlefield. The map had good rides and good architecture, but most of all... A opening narrative with timed explosions and messages. Battlefield RCT was an instant classic and has retained a spot on the best-of lists of LL connaisseurs since. It also won H2H park of the year in the H2H2 awards. Needless to say, The Icons got a landslide win here, qualifying them for the play-off with a 4-2 W-L record, but not because the opponent's park was weak. X-sector and Harakiri/bokti actually created a very strong LL park with the weird name You've Come A Long Way, Baby. They were certainly a long way from a win.

     

    Battlefield RCT by The Icons
    You've Come a Long Way, Baby by the Soutenours

     

    iris wrote:
    Well, a complete bonehead move by Nessy and the Sea Serpents actually clinches the final playoff spot for the Mean Green!
    The Mean Green are boosted to 2-4, and have one game remaining. The worst they could finish is 2-5, which is the same record as the Soutenours, but the Mean Green hold the better conference record, hence a playoff birth either way. I'm sure OZONE and the rest of the Soutenours aren't too pleased with the Sea Serpents, as Fatha's team basically gets a free ride straight to the playoffs.
    Themeparkmaster wrote:
    Ahahahahahahahahaha. I can't believe we made it to the playoffs. Thanks Sea Serpents!

    Looking at the contest standings, The Sea Serpents had already qualified. It is in Week 8 that they started doing a reverse Blue Meanies, simply not submitting because there was nothing to gain. The Mean Green, desperately in need of a win, therefore won their match by forfeit. Their park by Butterfinger and Dragoninferno, Mississippi Delta, wasn't overly interesting. Dragon's comment however once again revealed how the RCT2 meta was rapidly shifting at the time. Well this park has been sitting around waiting for the next match for a month or more now, so it might be a little outdated... Outdated, in a month. Anyway, because of the way the divisions worked and how the ranking was determined, The Mean Green had now qualified for the play-offs as well, and the Soutenours were out.

     

    Turtleman wrote:
    Honestly Nitro, you need a new set of colors. All I have seen from you is the same brown and yellow shit. Same archy, same elements.
    Roomie wrote:
    Grrrr i was ready to go this week but no one in our team can be arsed to help. come on guys. Stop being such idiots. it is a game after all.

    With two more weeks of parks to go, with nothing to gain or lose but dignity, the play-offs bracket were now set in stone. Week 9 was unsurprisingly uneventful, with one match in which The Sea Serpents failed to submit a park again, or rather, it didn't happen because of the team falling apart. Captain Nessy: Ride of Steel had to deal with some other stuff and handed over the captaincy to Raven-SDI. The Pufferfish's park by Nitrophobia and Hyper Helix, notably and fittingly boring (and brown), got them an easy win.

     

    Micool wrote:
    Oh God... Rushville was the most boring piece of shit I have ever laid eyes on... in RCT at least. It's like being in school. VOTE MEANIES. :D
    iris wrote:
    In a erm...unique round, The Blue Meanies defeat The Mean Green, and pick up their third straight win.
    This leaves the Blue Meanies with a 3-4 record, which is actually better then the Mean Green's 2-5 mark, yet the Mean Green will be in the playoffs opposed to the Blue Meanies, due to the division.

    Fortunately, Week 10 offered two complete matches again - perhaps because of everyone being somewhat fed up with the forfeits, or scared of being put on iris' H2H blacklist that he had introduced a few weeks earlier. A third win for the Blue Meanies and a fifth loss for The Mean Green occured in an uninteresting match in which one of the parks was ironically (intentionally) called Rushville, and the other park was named after an Eminem Song - White America. Again, due to how the team performances were determined, The Blue Meanies (3-4) would not be participating in the play-offs despite having a better record than The Mean Green (2-5). Still, the recovery The Blue Meanies made from barely being functional at all at the start could be a considered a positive ending for the team.

     

    The second match was one of the best matches of the entire season. RRP and Roomie, an unlikely pairing, created Indiana Ridge that mostly showcased Roomie's hacking skills with an Indiana Jones theme adventure ride. It was nice for the Sea Serpents to get a park in again after their string of misfortunates. Ablaze, an up and coming parkmaker, however beat them by a large margin with his solo park Livewires, themed to electricity, with a good amount of trackitecture and original colour schemes. This meant that The Icons could add a fifth win under their belt.

     

    In the North Division, the Sea Serpents led with 4 wins against 3 losses (of which two were forfeits). The Mean Green and the Soutenours both had an awful record of 2-5, but based on performance in the overall contest the Mean Green ranked slightly higher. In the South Division, The Pufferfish and the Icons were tied with 5-2 each. The Blue Meanies, despite their 3-4 record, were eliminated alongside the Soutenours. At some point in NE's history, either intentionally or by accident, the H2H2 team forums were combined into one and made publicly accessible. A lot of posts are from the Soutenours and the Blue Meanies, giving an impression of some of the chaos that went on behind the scenes.

     

    Indiana Ridge by The Sea Serpents
    Livewires by The Icons

     

    After Week 10 was released in late August/early September, the deadline for the play-offs was set in mid-October. On the 14th, the South Division teams met to battle for a place in the final. The Icons had Corkscrewed whip up The Myttica Resort, a gigantic hotel building with swimming pool complex and a few rides on the side. It was incomparable to RCT2 parks seen earlier during the season, with much more extensive and confident use of custom scenery. The Pufferfish' entry saw RCT2-pioneer Toon return to LL, together with posix. Spirits Bay was a quaint but by no means simplistic map uniquely themed to native American culture, with a wooden coaster that was deemed the best wooden coaster of the contest in the H2H2 awards. To the disbelief of some, the Icons won. The Myttica Resort was the last RCT2 park of the contest, as for the rest the teams returned to what they knew best. LL, and in the Sea Serpents' case, forfeiting. It appeared that their submission of a park in Week 10 was an anomaly rather than a recovery. The Mean Green were ready for a big match though, as Fatha' and natelox delivered a beautiful map in the form of Sicily, which sadly flew a bit under the radar at the time, though it got its recognition at the H2H2 awards when it got 3rd place in park of the season.

     

    Spirits Bay by the Pufferfish
    Sicily by The Mean Green

     

    The Grand Final between The Icons and the unlikely finalists Mean Green consisted of a best of three format. The Icons won both these matches, but they were hard fought as both teams brought their A-game. On November 12th, the first match dropped. Mantis and Ablaze made Atomkraftwerk, a science-fiction map with lava water and references to chemistry and things like that, as well as a spectacular suspended coaster with original hacking and an impressive looking steep drop over a lava waterfall. After already having had a large role in The Mean Green's semis park, Fatha whipped up another solo for the final in Miami 2040, a futuristic urban park that had weaker ride design than Atomkraftwerk, but generally better theming. Despite this, the Icons won this first match. The match was later elected as best match of the season.

     

    The second match had two maps that both featured cleverly designed adventure rides. The Mean Green submitted Kauri Cliffs, by Butterfinger and Themeparkmaster. The main ride, underwhelmingly called Cliff-Diver, is a mine train exploring a settlement, narrowly avoiding a train, dangling and reversing over the top of the clff, and evading a rock slide. The map also features a stand-up inverted coaster. Coaster Ed, however, completed his trilogy of insanely high quality RCT with BLOOD Island Adventure, with a giant adventure ride mine train that made Cliff-Diver looks like child's play, securing the Most Valuable Player award in the eventual H2H2 awards. It wasn't for everyone and Kauri Cliffs managed to get about a third of the votes, but their fate was sealed, and the Icons gained their second win, securing the championship without need for a third match. The match thread filled itself with some Mean Green infighting as well as hyping up of the already announced H2H3. The final event were the H2H2 awards, in which Toon and Coaster Ed swept up most of the awards.

     

    Miami 2040 by The Mean Green
    BLOOD Island Adventure by The Icons

     

    Coaster Ed write:
    [...] They also lacked anyone particularly skilled at building in RCT2 though this only became a weakness for them in retrospect. [...] Every RCT2 park lost and lost badly. They were all made in the early weeks of the season though before RCT2 parkmaking had matured into what it is today. [...] The trouble was, they didn't submit their best work early in the season when winning was easier and then in the later weeks when they did produce strong parks, they lost close matchups. RCT2 did not work out well for them at all with their best parkmakers being much more experienced in LL. The best teams had players skilled at both games and that was what worked against the Soutenours in the end.

    One last takeaway from H2H2 is H2H-culture coming into its own. One aspect of the modern H2H experience is lengthy write-ups and statistical analyses to go alongside with the actual RCT. Looking at H2H2, Coaster Ed may be the grandfather of this experience, occasionally posting overviews of matches that gave more clarity than iris had to offer, and writing a detailed report for every team afterwards, with speculation on why each team failed or succeeded. These are good reads for those who want to continue this deep dive into ancient NE history.

     

    Soutenours

    Blue Meanies

    Sea Serpents

    Pufferfish

    Mean Green

    Icons

     

    Lastly: it must be noted that the logo used for this write-up was actually the early H2H3 logo. There is no (known) H2H2 artwork. Please come forward if you think you have team logos!

  • Louis!%s's Photo

    Fantastic write up, really interesting to read into the history and drama. I remember the parks fondly, I just never really knew much about the actual contest itself.

  • Six Frags%s's Photo

    Yeah, great write-up Liam! The quotes are so funny, all that drama :D Great job digging this all up and giving us insight how it was back in the day.

  • Liampie%s's Photo

    From now on, history posts will come with a statistics oriented appendix like the one you will see below. The charts and tables will be filled as we progress with the seasons. Charts that look a bit strange now will make more sense later. Something to look forward to!

    H2H2 Statistics

     

    Players: Participation

    Sign-ups

    In the olden days of H2H2, H2H was first come first serve. Iris would drop a post in the forum to signify that sign-ups were open, and the first 60 people to see that post and react would get a spot in the draft. 62 players ended up signing up, and the last two were cruelly rejected. 62 remains the lowest number of sign-ups for a H2H edition on record. Though on paper 60 players were part of the contest, only 50 ended up contributing to a released park.

      Season Sign-ups  
      H2H2 62  
           
    Roster mutations

    60 players made it into H2H2, but some of them never contributed to a park, having silently faded into the background, or simply having dropped out. Poor record keeping keeps me from mapping trades, dropouts and replacements for H2H2.

    You would think that 60 sign-ups and 50 players means that there were 10 dropouts, but the 50 players include replacements - meaning there were more than 10 dropouts.

      Season Trades Dropouts  
      H2H2 ? ?  
             
    Veterancy

    From the 27 known H2H1 players only 13 returned to contribute to a H2H2 park. 37 rookies (74%) would remain the record for a while. Of all H2H2 players, not many returned for subsequent seasons. By H2H6, Roomie was the only remaining H2H2 veteran - he would keep making H2H appearances until H2H9. An interesting case is ACEfanatic02. ACE was among the 60 players drafted into the contest, but as an early dropout she ended up not contributing. Technically ACE is a rookie in H2HX, but a case can be made for her to be a returning H2H2 veteran.

    The chart below shows what other seasons the 50 H2H2 players also participated in.

           
     

    37

    (74%)

    13

    (26%)

    -

    13

    (26%)

    8

    (16%)

    5

    (10%)

    1

    (2%)

    1

    (2%)

    1

    (2%)

    1

    (2%)

    0

    (0%)

     
      Rookie H2H1 H2H2 H2H3 H2H4 H2H5 H2H6 H2H7 H2H8 H2H9 H2HX  
                             
    Players: Performance
    Productivity

    This section again starts with some disclaimers. H2H2 predates the creator share system, and extensive write-ups on who did what after match closure were extremely rare. It is difficult to determine the shares ex post, so when two creators are credited with a park, the credit is split even. This is the case for most H2H2 parks. That said, the players with the most cumulative shares during H2H2 are: Coaster Ed (270%), Fatha' (215%), and Ablaze, Ozone and Drew with 200% each with Posix and Toon not far behind. All of these players have contributed to three parks. An outlier is Themeparkmaster, whose shares add up to around 95%, despite also working on three parks. This confirms his role as a supporting player rather than a lead builder.

      Player Parks Shares    
      Coaster Ed 3 270%  
      Fatha' 3 215%  
      Drew 3 200%  
      Ozone 3 200%  
      Ablaze 3 200%  
      posix 3 192%  
      Toon 3 192%  
      x-sector 2 155%  
      Butterfinger 2 155%  
               
    Best and Worst Performers

    Using my own Power Ranking formula, one obvious name rises to the top: Coaster Ed. Uncontroversially and undoubtedly, Coaster Ed is H2H2's MVP, in whatever way you measure it: most productive, most wins (only player with three wins), and most Power Ranking points - almost triple of the number two: Ablaze. Curiously he lost two of his three matchups, but Atomkraftwerk and Elfwood both put up a fight with very narrow losses, while his solo Livewires park resulted in a convincing win - against RRP and Roomie, notably. Statistically that gives Ablaze a good net value. Natelox, Micool and Raven-SDI complete the top 5, but Raven's inclusion reveals a weakness in the Power Ranking. His sole contribution was a solo RCT2 park that won its match against Crystal Waters solely because the opponent's park was even weaker. On the other hand... He was there when it counted. Natelox obviously had a pretty good season, and Micool won both of his matches - as did Corkscrewed, one of the champions. Another strong candidate for MVP is Toon. Three parks, of which two won, and one of them was Purple Pill Heights, a watershed park for RCT2.

    Below you will find a top 20 of the most powerful H2H runs by individual builders. The top 20 will be filled in as this series progresses.

      #1   #11    
      #2
      #11    
      #3
    Coaster Ed (H2H2) #13
       
      #4
      #14
       
      #5
      #15
       
      #6
      #16
       
      #7
      #17
       
      #8
      #18
    Ablaze (H2H2)  
      #9
      #19
       
      #10
      #20
    natelox (H2H2)  
               

    When calculating the best players, there's no choice but to also calculate the worst players. Looking at H2H2, a few players stand out... Drew wasn't even all that bad, looking at the parks, but he built three times, and three times was he hopelessly defeated, making his H2H2 run the worst (either in terms of quality or luck) of the season. Going 0-3 has not happened a lot in H2H. It wouldn't happen until Louis! in H2H5, RWE in H2H8 and Bubbsy41 in H2H9. x-sector and Prince also had bad seasons, losing both their match-ups on behalf of the Soutenours.

    Team Performances

    The Power Ranking calculation can also be applied to teams as a whole, taking the average performance from each team member. The result can be used to calculate a ranking of all H2H teams, which you will find below. The Mean Green performing so poorly is surprising considering they ended up in the Grand Final, but that is easily explained when you think about how H2H used to work with divisions. And The Blue Meanies and the Sea Serpents are coming off too positively here, because they forfeited a few rounds each instead of submitting a weaker park as the other teams may have done. The Mean Green and the Pufferfish are punished for competing. Fortunately this will be less of a problem in (most) future H2Hs. On a more positive note, the Icons are the second best performing H2H team from all nine editions. They won most of their matches, and when they didn't, it was a very narrow loss. On the other end of the spectrum are the Soutenours. In fact, they are the lowest ranking H2H team of all time. Poor guys!

     

      Rank Team Season      
      #2 Icons H2H2 181  
      #10 Sea Serpents H2H2 63  
      #21 Blue Meanies H2H2   0  
      #25 Pufferfish H2H2  -19  
      #43 Mean Green H2H2  -79  
      #46 Soutenours H2H2  -188  
                 
    Matches: Outcomes
    Scores

    Many matches in H2H2 were hard fought. The average score for the winning parks, excluding parks that won by default, was about 68%. The largest win margin came from the Mean Green vs. Soutenours; with the win going to natelox and Themeparkmaster's Corozal (93%), and the remaining votes going to the first ever RCT2 park: Evanescence.

    The closest match was the Icons vs. Blue Meanies; Celestial Adventures versus Othello. The former got 33 votes or 49.25%, Othello scraping together a 50.75% win.

      Season Average loss %
     Average win %
     
      H2H2 32% 68%  
             
    Votes

    The very first H2H match is typically the match with the most votes, as the excitement is high and the burnout low. Elfwood vs Horstmann Laboratories is no exception to this; the match received 99 votes. However, both parks split the vote almost evenly, meaning the most amount of votes to go to a single park goes to a much less popular match. Natelox and Themeparkmaster's Corozal received 54 votes, out of the match-up's 58. The least popular match-up was Rushville vs. White America with 41 votes; a match that was indeed not quite as worthy of attention. The average was  60 votes per match.

      Season Average and maximum votes
     
      H2H2 99  
           
    Irregularities

    The contest was intended to have 50 parks, or 52 if the final two teams went 1-1 in the best of three grand final. However, over the course of the contest, only 44 parks were submitted. The number of registered forfeits is 6; three from the Sea Serpents, two from the Blue Meanies, and one from the Mean Green. The Sea Serpents hold the record for the most flaky H2H team, despite them getting into the play-offs! Nitrophobia from the Pufferfish contributed two parks this H2H, and both of them win by default. Lucky because of free wins, or unlucky because of wasted effort?

      Season Forfeits Disqualifications  
      H2H2 6 0  
             
    Matches: Parks
    Games

    44 parks were submitted over the course of the contest, for the first time in two different games. With RCT2 vs LL being one of the main themes this season, it makes sense to look at how each game fared in addition to simply the counts. First of all, there were 27 LL parks, and 17 RCT2 parks.

      Season % of all parks
      % of all parks
       
      H2H2 61% 39%    
               

    To be sure that LL was superior at the time, we must look at how often these games actually opposed each other in a match... LL vs RCT2 was actually the most ocurring type of match, and it turns out RCT had the slight upper hand in these matches. Out of 11 LL vs RCT2 matches, the RCT2 parks won 6. It is telling, however, that teams chose LL when it counted, and teams resorted to LL more as the contest progresses, especially in the play-off..

     

      Season Match types  
      H2H2  
       

    LL vs LL   LL vs RCT2   RCT2

     
           
    NE5 scores

    After NE5, all parks in the database have been open to community ratings. Obviously, the number of votes on most H2H2 parks are very low. Three parks crossed the 10 vote threshold; Sicily, Battlefield RCT and Erwindale Forest. Battlefield RCT has the highest accolade score with 82.50%. The highest community score belongs to Miami 2040 by Fatha', sitting at 90% after 7 votes.

      3 parks 0 parks 0 parks 0 parks 41 parks  

     

    Below you will find a (beginning of a) top 10 of highest accolade scores on H2H parks up until the current season.

      Season Score Park  
      H2H2 82.50% Battlefield RCT  
      H2H2 80.63% Erwindale Forest  
      H2H2 80.00% Sicily  

     

    Last updated: April 9th 2024

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