zex20913
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1723
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

There are currently several people on both of these lists who are...perhaps undeserving?

That is to say, they have a total of one room, with a 1st place tie. Those are the top five in Average Rank.

I would personally like to see the people who have a larger number of rooms completed, say 10 or more. I would think that visitors would want to see that, too.

Plus, if the trend continues, there will be no long-term people on the Average Rank listings.

____________________________

Kwakstur
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 385
Registered: 05-05-2006
IP: Logged

I kind of have mixed feelings about this.

Personally, I think that's what the Score is for. To get a good Score, you must have a lot of top demos. The other sort options may not be quite as reliable, and they should not really be taken to mean anything.

But, then again, do these people really deserve to appear at the top of any list that recognizes our best players? Probably not.

I think I would support a 10/15 demo minimum.

____________________________
Also known as ExpHP everywhere else.

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1218
Registered: 05-12-2005
IP: Logged

zex20913 wrote:
There are currently several people on both of these lists who are...perhaps undeserving?

That is to say, they have a total of one room, with a 1st place tie. Those are the top five in Average Rank.

I would personally like to see the people who have a larger number of rooms completed, say 10 or more. I would think that visitors would want to see that, too.

Plus, if the trend continues, there will be no long-term people on the Average Rank listings.

I agree totally and have done so for over 2 years. I'd like to see at least 100 rooms cleared before any avg points/avg rank gets displayed in the high scores. Averages need time to mature.

Cheers for bringing it up.

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2708
Registered: 02-05-2003
IP: Logged

It's important to balance the goal of having accurate averages with the goal of not setting a daunting bar for new players. We don't want to scare them away, and we do want them paying for Caravelnet, so making them wait 100 rooms until they get highscores is excessive, even though that would be good for the actual highscores.

10 scores seems like a good idea to me - it's a large enough number to make it extremely unlike to get a top ten score entirely accidentally, and a small enough number to keep the highscores fun for newbies. If they get 10 rooms and keep playing, then their highscore will correct itself on its own pretty fast.

____________________________
I got my avatar back! Yay!

Beef Row
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 471
Registered: 12-28-2005
IP: Logged

eytanz wrote:
It's important to balance the goal of having accurate averages with the goal of not setting a daunting bar for new players. We don't want to scare them away, and we do want them paying for Caravelnet, so making them wait 100 rooms until they get highscores is excessive, even though that would be good for the actual highscores.

Syntax's suggestion was not to make players wait 100 rooms, or 10, or even 2 before they get highscores, which absolutely would be unfair and a bit silly as well.

It was that players with less than 100 high scores not appear on the average rank and average points lists only, as these can become terribly misleading for people with few scores, and remain so indefinitely if the limited number of scores is because they only used the one month caravelnet trial and only played a few rooms.

Currently the top 5 for average rank are all players with a single score of second place.

____________________________
"Now I will repeatedly apply the happy-face rule"

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2708
Registered: 02-05-2003
IP: Logged

Beef Row wrote:
Syntax's suggestion was not to make players wait 100 rooms, or 10, or even 2 before they get highscores, which absolutely would be unfair and a bit silly as well.

It was that players with less than 100 high scores not appear on the average rank and average points lists only, as these can become terribly misleading for people with few scores, and remain so indefinitely if the limited number of scores is because they only used the one month caravelnet trial and only played a few rooms.

Currently the top 5 for average rank are all players with a single score of second place.

Yes, I understood that. But the average rank/points scores are the defacto main high-score lists. The problem of the people with single scores will be solved to a large degree by a 10 score requirement. It's easy to get one or two 2nd place scores, but unless someone is deliberately trying to spam the highscores, it's much harder for a novice to sustain that over 10 rooms.

I'm not sure what the sweet spot is - maybe 10 is too little - maybe we need 20 or 25 or so. But 100 is too much.

____________________________
I got my avatar back! Yay!

Tahnan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2459
Registered: 11-14-2005
IP: Logged

I agree with this request, incidentally; but I'd like to ask something related, since eytanz opened the door:

eytanz wrote:
It's easy to get one or two 2nd place scores, but unless someone is deliberately trying to spam the highscores, it's much harder for a novice to sustain that over 10 rooms.

So what happens if someone is deliberately trying to spam the highscores? It seems trivially easy to do: open hold, walk out of first room, move on to next hold. Repeat 25 times. It's probably also fairly easy to spot. And it's not, I believe, against any current rule, even though it is against sportsmanship and fair play.

So, especially if a variant of this request is adopted, should there be a rule? If so, what?

Blondbeard
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1486
Registered: 03-31-2005
IP: Logged

Perhaps something like this: You have to play 10 rooms in order to get avarege rank/points, but you can't count any hold/level-entrances until after you have compleated at least 100 rooms. I realize that there are puzzles even in entrances, but that's quite rare.

---

[Last edited by Blondbeard at 07-03-2008 07:18 AM]

Jeffrey0
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 44
Registered: 05-14-2008
IP: Logged

Or this: Require people to have completed the demo levels of an official hold (3 levels) in order to show up in the list. It'd make highscore spamming very hard to do and probably wouldn't inconvenience people who buy the game; they're likely to have all of the demo rooms finished.

zex20913
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1723
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

That seems a little bit overboard as well.

Perhaps we could have somebody just look at the scores and see if there's some spamming going on. I remember a while ago, someone whose name started with a C was direct copying demos, and spamming #2 scores because of it. I forgot the actual name. But the situation was taken care of.

I think a minimum room requirement and a touch of oversight (look at it once every 2 months, even) would suffice.

____________________________

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1218
Registered: 05-12-2005
IP: Logged

Picking the right amount is always going to be open to debate.

I guess my angle was more of a:
"Don't include people with less than a 100 high scores when sorting by avg rank or avg score (or any future avg stat)".

Their scores would still be available when you click on their profile, but wouldn't be displayed in any "(avg stat) sort". Cumulative stats, such as score and number of HS is fine. Averages are meaningless though without a decent base (such as 100).