Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

The highscores page is working well enough that I can release it. There will definitely be some additions made to it, and at some point I will probably have to do a lot of optimization - the Players page can be really slow already, and it will just get worse with more players and more high scores.

The overall "Score" you see is based on the following scale:
1st place: 16
2nd place: 12
3rd place: 9
4th place: 7
5th place: 5
6th place: 3
7th place: 2
8th place: 1

The "Number of High Scores" column is somewhat deceiving, as it includes scores that aren't in the Top 8. I should probably change that, or at least add the number of Top 8s. Players are sortable by any column, but Holds aren't (yet).

In the Holds view, clicking on a Hold brings up a list of levels, then clicking on a level brings up a list of high scores for all rooms in that level. Clicking on the location of the room (i.e. Once North, Twice West) will bring up a picture of that room.

Viewing high scores for a level will show you the Top 8 for each room, as well as your score for that room, even if it's not in the Top 8.

With no further ado, the page can be found here. I will probably add a link to it in that little tool bar thingy under the forum banner at some point.

Please tell me if you have any problems with it, and feel free to suggest further additions to the page. So you don't waste your time with requests that are already planned, I plan to add at least these things:
- In My Stats, add listings of just my high scores for each hold/level
- Sorting of Holds by any column
- "Hall of Legendary Smitemasters" for each hold


____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

stigant
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1182
Registered: 08-19-2004
IP: Logged

First, is it possible to get highscore totals for just one hold. In otherwords, the overall point totals tab seems to be for all holds everywhere. Further, clicking on an individual holds shows me a break down by room, but I can't find a summary for each level or for the entire hold.

Secondly, in the case of ties for number of moves, it looks like the tiebreaker is the actual amount of time spent solving the room. Is this correct? I personally think you ought to rank it by date that the demo was recorded (see below)

Also, is there anyway to prevent me from watching the first place demo and recording one with that many moves myself? (This is why I think the tie breaker ought to be date instead of time).

____________________________
Progress Quest Progress

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2936
Registered: 03-29-2003
IP: Logged

stigant wrote:
Secondly, in the case of ties for number of moves, it looks like the tiebreaker is the actual amount of time spent solving the room. Is this correct? I personally think you ought to rank it by date that the demo was recorded

I am 99% sure that this is the way it is right now. Just looking at JtRH level 3, I see several rooms where people have the same scores, but someone with a longer time is ranked higher than someone else who solved it at a later date.

There's nothing to prevent someone from watching the best demo and redoing it themselves. It's a discussion we had many times on the private boards, and we decided that if we were going to allow demo downloads at all, it just wasn't fair to only let people download ones that were worse than theirs.

I would imagine that if we were to have another contest like with that hold Clayton made, that high scores would be disabled for the duration so that people couldn't see other demos. (Although if it weren't published to the Holds board it wouldn't matter.) But really these high scores are for our own amusement and light competition...and if nothing else, we want some kind of proof that the high scores are real, and not someone that figured out how to hack DROD and send false move counts.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

This is so cool, I'm almost as excited about it as I was when the beta was released! Great work, Schik!

Grr... I'll get you all, you 36 "better" than me (at present)! Just you wait!

Oneiromancer wrote:

stigant wrote:
Secondly, in the case of ties for number of moves, it looks like the tiebreaker is the actual amount of time spent solving the room. Is this correct? I personally think you ought to rank it by date that the demo was recorded

I am 99% sure that this is the way it is right now. Just looking at JtRH level 3, I see several rooms where people have the same scores, but someone with a longer time is ranked higher than someone else who solved it at a later date.

I think the date it was sent to Caravel.net should be the determiner for your rank, since I agree it is unfair for those who just watch and copy the recorded demos. People who got the solution first deserve to have the recognition for it, not someone else who just copied it and happened to do it slightly faster.

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

agaricus5 wrote:
Great work, Schik!

Thanks!

I think the date it was sent to Caravel.net should be the determiner for your rank

The date sent is indeed the tie-breaker. It was only based on real time very early on in the beta.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Wow, this should stimulate people's competitive natures! I really like the overall score, which neatly sums up an entire career (well post-4/1 anyhow) of smitemastery. Great job, Schik!

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

wackhead_uk
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 352
Registered: 06-21-2004
IP: Logged

It says I've conquered no holds, and also in my explored but unconquered holds part:

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/httpd/vhosts/drod.net/httpdocs/forum/highscores.php on line 363

I have a lot of unconquered holds though...

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

wackhead_uk wrote:
It says I've conquered no holds, and also in my explored but unconquered holds part:

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/httpd/vhosts/drod.net/httpdocs/forum/highscores.php on line 363

I have a lot of unconquered holds though...

Do you have DROD set to not upload High Scores?

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

MasterGiga
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 67
Registered: 02-21-2005
IP: Logged

Heh heh...I'm #65...well, I shall improve eventually!

I edited after uploading my latest scores from L22 and L24.

[Edited by MasterGiga at Local Time:04-15-2005 at 03:33 AM: Moved up a #]

[Edited by MasterGiga at Local Time:04-15-2005 at 02:12 PM]

____________________________
...

RoboBob3000
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1978
Registered: 10-23-2003
IP: Logged

Since so many of the user created holds that get added to the score have levels that are essentially trivial when compared to holds like JtRH, it seems odd that they're weighted the same in the scores. Of course, there's no easy way to regulate that, but I think it would make it worthwhile to have a ranking feature on a per-hold basis as well. I don't mean room-by-room, like we already have, but a ranking of every players' scores for a given hold somewhere. And if this is already somewhere, then ignore me.

____________________________
http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

TripleM
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1373
Registered: 02-05-2003
IP: Logged

By the way - was this the big announcement?

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2936
Registered: 03-29-2003
IP: Logged

Nope...that hasn't happened yet. Just a happy coincidence.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

RoboBob3000 wrote:
I think it would make it worthwhile to have a ranking feature on a per-hold basis as well. I don't mean room-by-room, like we already have, but a ranking of every players' scores for a given hold somewhere. And if this is already somewhere, then ignore me.

Yeah, I think that's what Stigant asked for up there. I agree, it's a very worthwhile thing to have. I will plan on adding this.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

patmo98
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 39
Registered: 03-14-2003
IP: Logged

Why does it list that I have "Conquered" JtRH? I am on Level 16.

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

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

There was a bug in the first release of the demo (if you downloaded it in the first few days) where if you solved the demo and then upgraded, it counts the entire hold as conquered. It has no ill effect, just ignore it.

____________________________
I got my avatar back! Yay!

rowrow
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 08-17-2004
IP: Logged

Is the highscores page the page of your demos when you click f6 in game? If not, what is it?

____________________________
B'hakhgra Du S'tra Moth'ness Ti!

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

rowrow wrote:
Is the highscores page the page of your demos when you click f6 in game? If not, what is it?

No, we're talking about the new High Scores page on the site. Click "High Scores" up there under the forum banner.


____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

BigRedCat
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 13
Registered: 06-25-2004
IP: Logged

I imported my DROD:AE player data but since it didn't have the same name I can't seem to combine it with my JtRH player on the high scores page? I added the CaravelNet name and key on my AE player and I Uploaded scores, etc.

ETA: It doesn't show that I've played about 20+ holds and conguered a couple of them for instance. It only shows one hold that I don't think I even played for an hour.

[Edited by BigRedCat at Local Time:04-16-2005 at 02:33 PM]

stigant
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1182
Registered: 08-19-2004
IP: Logged

Something else I thought of just now:

I'd like to be able to see a list of all the rooms, across all dungeons, that I'm currently the best at.

Also, I'd like to be able to designate a room as a favorite. I could call up a list of my favorites and see where I am currently ranked for that room. Also whenever somebody improves the best score (or possibly pushes me down a place) on one of my favorite rooms, I get a PM or an email or something saying so-and-so beat your score for room such-and-such. This could be done on a weekly basis (summarize all activity for all my favorites in one email).

____________________________
Progress Quest Progress

silver
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 915
Registered: 01-18-2005
IP: Logged

I have a request, perhaps a little easier to code than some other requests: on the "my stats" page, after the "high scores" column, could it list a number of rooms? so, ye know, ye can see "JtRH: 303 high scores of 1700 rooms" and know ye need to work on it, but, say "Veere's dungeon: 16 high scores of 16 rooms", well, then I probably don't need to go back there at the moment


____________________________

Rabscuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 09-10-2004
IP: Logged

A request: I'd like to be able to sort rooms in a hold by movecount of the best demo.

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

I've made a couple of enhancements:

- The Holds view now shows a list of Players for each Hold, so you can see how each person rates at each hold.

- You're right silver, that was easy, so now the high score count shows the maximum number of high scores you can get for that hold. The maximum number can change through time as 1-turn rooms are discarded.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

wackhead_uk
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 352
Registered: 06-21-2004
IP: Logged

I recommend that some people start doing some of the large holds again and optimise their scores for all to see, as I now apparently hold a few first place scores in some of the rooms on Bavato's dungeon just by completing the first few rooms on level 11 .

Maurog
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1501
Registered: 09-16-2004
IP: Logged

The scores won't really mean much in the first few months. Then, things will start to stabilize and we'll see who is who. Quoting JtRH - "When the goblins get tough, the delver gets going".

I still kinda object to having all the top demos avaliable to the public. There's gotta be some sneaky lovechilds out there that will copy the moves of place 1 to get an undeserved place 2. I suggest that everybody who has a place lesser that 8 will only be able to download the demo for place 8. And the people in top 8 will only be able to download the demos from their place down. Everyone will of course still see the moves/time count of all 8 demos. Or some variation on the above. Would be more fair.

____________________________
Slay the living! Raise the dead!
Paint the sky in crimson red!

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2936
Registered: 03-29-2003
IP: Logged

Maurog wrote:
I still kinda object to having all the top demos avaliable to the public. There's gotta be some sneaky lovechilds out there that will copy the moves of place 1 to get an undeserved place 2. I suggest that everybody who has a place lesser that 8 will only be able to download the demo for place 8. And the people in top 8 will only be able to download the demos from their place down. Everyone will of course still see the moves/time count of all 8 demos. Or some variation on the above. Would be more fair.

Well, again, we did discuss this "problem", and, well, besides the fact that it's just a game and not really a big deal if this happens, it's not much fun to have the #1 score and not be able to show off how you did it. With your solution, no one at all would be able to see the #1 place.

The high scores were more or less inspired by the system in N (see the good action games thread in Anything), which is an action/puzzle game that is timed. Both individual level and 5-level episode scores are uploaded to the server, and the top 20 demos are available to watch in game. There's a lot of friendly competition on the message boards when someone posts "Hey, I beat your score" and the other person watches the demo and posts "Wow, that's a good way of doing that, but I was able to shave a few seconds off by doing it better" and so on. Eventually a bunch of people will have the same (or very close to the same) score, all with the same method, but for a time it's good competitive fun. With DROD, we have the advantage of having all of our user-made holds available for the high scores list, while N only has the official levels. So hopefully there will always be holds to compete on here.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

schep
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 865
Registered: 03-01-2005
IP: Logged

I don't really see myself ever obsessing over keeping my rank. But I'm aware that some people will, that's just the way everything MMO goes. So I'm more interested in sharing my good demos than preventing others from copying from them.

But also, keep in mind that your score measures both quantity and quality. There's no way you can conquer all the user holds, and more will be released as you play through some. You can probably benefit your score better by playing new holds than attempting to shave a few dozen moves off what you've already done. So really, consider chilling out about fierce competition on each and every room.

I do want to question one thing about this system, though. Right now, there's a score advantage to playing unpopular holds. If I'm the second person to ever try a user hold, I know I'll get 2nd place on every room I beat and I have a good chance on getting a few 1sts. Could there be some sort of weighting so that a 2nd place score in a room 50 people have played counts for more than a 1st place out of one player demo? Encouraging people to try new stuff is fine, and a mild weighting would leave that incentive there while also recognizing the triumphs of the real masters of 'mainstream' holds.

Stefan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2119
Registered: 05-25-2004
IP: Logged

* Should hidden rooms (rooms that are "removed" from the image database) really show up on the high scores page?

* If you are looking at the scores for a player, then there's no link back to the player-list. You either have to press "back" in your browser or click (for instance) on "Holds" and then "Players" to get to choose another player.

* It would be nice to have all holds/players in all lists linked to each other, especially the list of holds in a players' high score profile.


Oh, and for the record (and kind of an answer to the post above), I won't be trying to keep my high score rank either. I'm treating it the same way I'm treating my forum rank: it's nice to have a higher rank, but I'm not obsessed about it and I generally don't really care (I'm usually not a very competitive person). Because of my playing style, I don't expect to be #2 for very long. I hardly ever optimize my solutions while playing (I only do that when I'm in the mood to do so, and I seriously doubt that I'll change that behaviour just because the high scores page was added). My current rank is mostly based on the sheer number of high scores, rather than high ranking scores.

[Edited by Stefan at Local Time:04-17-2005 at 09:52 PM]

[Edited by Stefan at Local Time:04-17-2005 at 11:00 PM]

____________________________
0.099³

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2936
Registered: 03-29-2003
IP: Logged

Stefan wrote:
* Should hidden rooms (rooms that are "removed" from the image database) really show up on the high scores page?

You can't see the hidden rooms unless you have been there yourself, at least for JtRH. It's kind of hard for you to test it since if you log out and go to the high scores page, you shouldn't be able to see any JtRH rooms/scores at all. But as I started over when the full version was released, I was able to help confirm with Schik that the rooms that I hadn't explored didn't show up. If you find differently, let us know.

If you're talking about rooms in user-made holds that they intentionally left out of the room image database...I would think that should be done the same way but I don't know if Schik took the time to do that yet.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Stefan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2119
Registered: 05-25-2004
IP: Logged

I'm talking about hidden rooms, not secret rooms (I know that it works for secret rooms). Those rooms that are hidden by selecting them on the 'Room Image Preferences'-page in your profile (if you're the author of the hold).

Edit: However, I haven't really checked it for hidden rooms I haven't visited yet. Secret levels I have visited won't show up on the page, so I'm not entirely sure what the problem really is anymore...
Edit: Further testing shows that hidden rooms are shown regardless of if you've visited them or not, but hidden levels won't show up on the list even if you've visited and conquered them.

[Edited by Stefan at Local Time:04-17-2005 at 10:41 PM]

[Edited by Stefan at Local Time:04-17-2005 at 10:58 PM]

____________________________
0.099³

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2936
Registered: 03-29-2003
IP: Logged

Well, ideally, rooms that are removed from the image database in this way should be treated the same as rooms that you haven't explored in JtRH. I guess we wait for Schik to tell us how it is.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams