eytanz
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So, taking the most cynical view possible, people who can't solve the hold will rank it as easier, and people who can will rank it as harder. Hmmm...

(Not that I really think this will be a problem, since I trust that a vast majority of forum posters will vote honestly).

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Blondbeard
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eytanz wrote:
So, taking the most cynical view possible, people who can't solve the hold will rank it as easier, and people who can will rank it as harder. Hmmm...

That would be hillarious! It would just be so wrong.

Dolan42
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Blondbeard wrote:
To go slightly off topic... How about if you could be rewarded a few points for compleating every dificult hold?

Why not have a difficulty rating for each room?(probably a pain) Only people who have beaten the room could vote on the level of difficulty. Then you could add another column in the highscore table for difficulty points. Say you used a 0-10 scale then the points for each room would be multiplied by the rating/10 to get the difficulty points. Of course this scheme would also be subject to voter fraud(or the equivalent), but the mode could be used instead of the average to take care of some of that.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

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Tahnan
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Dolan42 wrote:
Why not have a difficulty rating for each room?(probably a pain)

Definitely a pain. As it is, take, say, Easy or Hard, one of the ten most conquered holds, with 144 explorers and 111 conquerors. It's got 15 votes for rating and difficulty. Or Chainsaw, with 100 explorers, 97 conquerors: nine votes. So as it is, perhaps a tenth of the people who play/finish a hold go back and vote for it; make people do it room by room, and it's even less likely that they will.

(I think there are other reasons not to do room-by-room voting, but the practical one will do nicely.)

krepnox
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I know that I don’t have a lot of points or high scores - yet. On the other hand, my average points and average rank are both in the top 20, so I definitely have some thoughts on scoring.

I really like the idea of a scoring system. It doubles my enjoyment of the game. The first time through a room, my goal is to get through the room in the way that the architect intended. Part of that goal is to avoid being eaten by one of the monsters. (I have the same goal in real life.) After that, I go back and play the room a second way with a different goal. Here, my object is to try to optimize my score.

For example, I am currently playing Claythro Tower. I had been having some difficulty with one of the rooms. A few days ago, I finally got through it and was feeling pretty good about it. The next day, I took a look at my 1500+ move solution and started to think about how I might improve it. It took a few hours over a couple of days, but I was able to get my solution under 900 moves which was good for third place in that room. That third place finish gave me far more satisfaction than one of the first place ties for finding the shortest straight line path out of an entrance room.

I agree with the posts by eytanz and zex20913. I am just looking to consistently finish a room between second and sixth place. (If only that were always possible.) Right now, I am mostly playing holds that have been out for a while, so they are usually well explored by the good players. There are a number of astonishingly good players out there and we all know who they are. Their success is well deserved. So, when I can obtain a score that is competitive with those players, I feel that I have really accomplished something. And, on those occasions when I am able to get the number one score for a room, it is really incredible.

Of course, all of that being said, I don’t have any objection to non-challenging rooms that score. I enjoy the effort and challenge of optimizing my scores. Still, every now and then, it’s nice to get some easy points just for showing up. I also think it’s a nice thing to give a little reward to players who are not interested in spending hours, or even days, optimizing their scores. I am not troubled that players less obsessive than me can get some easy scores. To me it is like the SATs – the American college entrance exam. It is scored on a scale of 200 to 800. So what if people get 200 points just for showing up and signing their name? I can sure tell the difference between someone who scores 250 and someone who scores 750.

It’s the same thing here. The top players are there for a reason - the cream rose to the top. I didn’t read any posts where someone felt that their score was unfairly depressed because non-challenging rooms are scored. Neither did I read any posts claiming that anyone had unfairly climbed too high in the rankings because they ran up the easy rooms. So when we really look at it, the scoring system works. If it’s not broken, why try to fix it?

I concede that the current system isn’t perfect. No system is. One objection has been identified by a number of people. The current system does not distinguish between easy rooms and hard rooms. A number 3 score gets the same number of points in either room, even so that one of the rooms required a lot more effort than the other one. Also, the current system is an ordinal ranking, so it doesn’t give any effect to the quality of a second place finish. That is, my second place ranking gets me the same number of points whether I finish 3 moves behind michthro, wallu, syntax, rabscuttle, etc. or 300 moves behind. Similarly, the system doesn’t evaluate how many moves third place trails second place, and so on.

Still, I would strongly oppose a change to the current system. I especially dislike the suggestions that we rank rooms or holds for difficulty in order to adjust the scoring. I agree with eytanz and tahnan. That change would create some perverse incentives. If I want to increase my score, I will rate the rooms where I scored well as the hardest – even if it is one of the trivial non-challenging rooms. Equally so, I now have an incentive to rate that room where I finished 187th as an easy room. After that, there are the things that can’t be predicted. In the end, the Law of Unintended Consequences is a powerful thing, not to be treated lightly. Some of the changes proposed might ease the imperfections in the system. But I would bet that any change will create all sorts of other problems. Worse problems, probably.

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[Last edited by krepnox at 08-26-2006 11:38 PM]

Blondbeard
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I just can't belive that you think people would start judging difficulty differently. Also it is NOT a question of that many highscorepoints.

Well... It doesn't matter that much. I just think it would be neat to be rewarded for compleating a very difficult hold. Also I would like to see a bit of evolution in most things. To change things and see what works. In many ways socity feels awfully conservative. Why do you asume that any changes would lead to worse problems?

I, for one, have on a few ocations been chosing somewhat easier holds becasue of the highscoresystem. Yes, it is childish, but I like to sometimes see my total score climb a little. This feels a bit bad, but is beside the point of this argument. I just don't find the highscore system that optimal.

krepnox
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Blondbeard wrote:
I just think it would be neat to be rewarded for completing a very difficult hold.

Why do you asume that any changes would lead to worse problems?

For what it’s worth, I agree with you in principle. A better scoring system would find a way to give greater rewards for more difficult rooms. This is part of the “quantity vs. quality” issue that michthro raised early on in this thread.

And, just to repeat something from my last post, there is another imperfection in the system. Let’s say that you finish a room in the theoretical minimum number of moves. You get the number one score and deservedly so. The problem is that the number two score is determined by its relation to the number three score, not to the number one score. Stated differently, in order for me to get the number two score, all I have to do is beat the number three score – it doesn’t matter how far I am behind number one. I could be 2 moves behind you or I could be 200 moves behind you. As long as I beat number three, I get the number two spot. The current system doesn’t correct for that.

I could pick out other issues, but my main point is that the current system is imperfect. So why don’t I want to change it? Three main reasons.
1. What is the most important feature of a scoring system? I believe that the most important thing is to give the greatest rewards to the best players. I think that the current system has done exactly that. I have played many fewer rooms than most players. However, I have played enough to know that all the people at the top of the scoring list are incredible players who definitely deserve their rankings.
2. Why do I assume that changing the system will lead to worse problems? Long professional experience. Of course, you are right that it is not automatic that a change will lead to worse problems. However, avoiding those problems requires a great deal of planning and testing. The question is whether the benefit of factoring difficulty into the scoring is worth the effort. My experience tells me it’s probably not worth the risk.
3. Even assuming that there is widespread agreement to change the system, how do we measure the difficulty of a room? Personally, I can’t stand rooms with wubbas, so I would tend to rate them as more difficult. Someone else might give greater difficulty to rooms with goblins. What about rooms with a lot of slashing as opposed to rooms with timing puzzles. Even if we had some universal yard stick, we go back to a point that tahnan made. Only about 10% of the players on the forum take the time rate the holds they have played. I think that percentage will go down even more if people are asked to rate each and every room.

Blondbeard wrote:
I, for one, have on a few occasions been chosing somewhat easier holds because of the high score system.

I am working my way through the holds in chronological order. I am playing the oldest holds first until I get caught up. Right now, I am working my way through Claythro Tower, which is pretty difficult. I am enjoying the challenge. I am also enjoying that it is taking me such a long time to get through it. If I remember correctly, the next hold I will be playing after this is a DROD tutorial, which should really fatten up my statistics. With a nice easy hold like that, I figure that my score should double by the end of next week.

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[Last edited by krepnox at 08-27-2006 05:19 AM]

eytanz
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krepnox wrote:
And, just to repeat something from my last post, there is another imperfection in the system. Let’s say that you finish a room in the theoretical minimum number of moves. You get the number one score and deservedly so. The problem is that the number two score is determined by its relation to the number three score, not to the number one score. Stated differently, in order for me to get the number two score, all I have to do is beat the number three score – it doesn’t matter how far I am behind number one. I could be 2 moves behind you or I could be 200 moves behind you. As long as I beat number three, I get the number two spot. The current system doesn’t correct for that.

Wait, why should it? This seems like a perfectly normal scoring system to me - it's the same as used in any athletic competition and almost all highscore systems.


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krepnox
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eytanz wrote:

krepnox wrote:
In order for me to get the number two score, all I have to do is beat the number three score – it doesn’t matter how far I am behind number one. I could be 2 moves back or I could be 200 moves back. As long as I beat number three, I get the number two spot. The current system doesn’t correct for that.

Wait, why should it? This seems like a perfectly normal scoring system to me - it's the same as used in any athletic competition and almost all highscore systems.

You put your finger on the point I was trying to make. I guess I wasn’t all that clear about it.

I raised the issue as a straw man to be knocked down. The point originally made was that the scoring system does not adjust for the fact that some people play harder rooms and holds. I pointed out another way in which it could be adjusted. In a better world, someone will devise a scoring system that will correct for those subtleties. Of course in a better world, the Red Sox would be in first place and my car would start in the morning without having to face magnetic north. Since we don’t yet live in that better world, I believe that our current scoring system is fine just the way it is. If the need to correct for the relative difficulty of the rooms played causes any distortions in the system, they are trivial. The people at the top all deserve to be there, which shows that the system fairly reflects reality.

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[Last edited by krepnox at 08-27-2006 07:47 AM]

Blondbeard
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I think the ability to vote for single rooms in-game could be really helpful for architects. I would like that. It could (should) be something existing side by side with the old system. However there was just one who sugested that every room should be rated for difficulty. That needn't be conected to the bonus highscores.

Every system has it's flaws, but that's no reason never to try things out. As long as it's relativly easy to do the changes for Schik I think you could play around a little. See what feels like the best solution. If it's not easy to make changes I definitly agree with you that it is a bad idea to do any changes at all unless you're really sure that they're good. Oh, and you might very well know more of this than I do from your profesional experience.

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[Last edited by Blondbeard at 08-27-2006 10:15 AM]

Tahnan
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First: gratuitous point to krepnox for the Red Sox comment.

Beyond that: one could conceivably estimate the difficulty of a room by the spread--either the difference between least moves and most, or the number of places (is everyone tied for first? is there a range from first to two hundred sixty seventh?). For the latter, you'd want to normalize for the number of people who've played the room.

Either way, of course, you have the problem that not everyone tries to optimize. So really, it's not necessarily a good idea; just throwing it out there.

Generally, speaking, though: what krepnox said.