Leaderboard Change Proposals - Discussion

[LN2]

Rick C. , well done on galaga .

Thanks...I tried a handful of games of "Galaga" but could only managed around 400k on the few tries.

Gatsbee for whatever reason seems easier. I quickly figured out the shoot approaches to take when they initially come out on each stage...which is 90% of the game IMHO.

For regular Galaga, I hadn't quite refigured that out where it's reliable enough.

How was the move?
Baltimore , Maryland ?

I have not moved yet.
I have been packing a few boxes each night the past week.
I will be moving around March 27-29....still making arrangements for the actual day.

On the other note, Rule #2 IMHO does NOT require replays submitted to be a demonstration of good or great skill. It mentions that as a mission statement for MARP. That's different versus saying all replays here are of great skill.

Heck, if you want that then go ahead and remove 90% of all scores here at MARP. I'm sure it would quickly have almost no participation.

I think this is all overboard stuff.

Rule #2's suggestion has nothing to do with the leaderboard really. Yes, the leaderboard points might be a motivating factor for some ABC submissions.

It's why one of my earliest and easiest suggestions just had the 10pts minimum thing. If a calculation results in less than 10 points, then it gets ZERO. perhaps 15 or 20 could be used instead.

Sure, that wouldn't stop all of the ABC submissions, but it would stop many of them.

Another idea suggested above is to require a minimal average of 20 or 25 or even 30 points per submission to even be listed on the leaderboard.

This has potential, but what if I just want to view players and see some scores they have?

Just this past week I looked down at like #100-200 of the leaderboard and found a few guys I know through TG so I clicked on their link to see what scores they had submitted.

If you start leaving names off cuz they don't have a high enough average then I or others would never see those player's names or potentially check out their scores.

It goes beyond just viewing the top scores. You might be in competition with an online friend so you are checking out each other's scores.

Without showing them on the leaderboard, they would manually have to calculate average points per submission and total points.

If that info was shown on the player's score list page...then it might be different...but the ONLY place that info is available is on the leaderboard.

if ABC submitting was rampant I could understand a lot of the above. It's not rampant.

Rule #2...if you want it to state what Buttermaker thinks it states, then let's change it...but the result of that would be deleting 90% of all MARP replays cuz they would violate that rule.

Plus it's very subjective. What one player calls a "suck-ass" score might be viewed as another gamer as a pretty good score....perhaps not masterful but pretty good.

[tar]

invisible post

[Zwaxy]

invisible post

I think you might just have your eyes closed, mate.

[mahlemiut]

Rule #2...if you want it to state what Buttermaker thinks it states, then let's change it...but the result of that would be deleting 90% of all MARP replays cuz they would violate that rule.

Plus it's very subjective. What one player calls a "suck-ass" score might be viewed as another gamer as a pretty good score....perhaps not masterful but pretty good.

True, but you have to admit that there are plenty of recordings where people have just uploaded their first attempt, and never improve it. Sure, the supar champien and fhqwghads recordings are just uploaded for a laugh, but if you can't beat either of them an any game, then there's something very wrong with you. Right, Francois?

[Buttermaker]

I think the real issue is that there are too many poor recordings uploaded, and that a lot of these recordings are only uploaded because they gain leaderboard points.

correct

Rule #2...if you want it to state what Buttermaker thinks it states, then let's change it...

It's people who break rule 2 l) really.

Read carefully. I said 2 l).

l) Submit only games that you feel are worthy of the notice of other MARPers, owing either to personal effort, or display of skill.

And what that means has been discussed to great extent already. Please don't comment on it anymore.

[LN2]

True, but you have to admit that there are plenty of recordings where people have just uploaded their first attempt, and never improve it.

True. I'm not sure if that occurs often enough though to change the leaderboard to try and totally "fix" that aspect...as the damage it does to other aspects...other average players...might overall have a negative impact on MARP.

One feature of MARP is it's publicly open and all are welcome to participate.

l) Submit only games that you feel are worthy of the notice of other MARPers, owing either to personal effort, or display of skill.

And what that means has been discussed to great extent already. Please don't comment on it anymore.

Really? I didn't see it discussed. Perhaps those were posts I overlooked cuz of extreme length or posts that disappeared or are invisibile. I saw you PREACH what you think rule #2 states....then I stated what I think it really states.

Other than that it really wasn't discussed.
Can you say without a doubt that a 10,200 centipede replay uploaded by someone in their eyes isn't perceived as being worthy?

It doesn't state that you must submit a replay you feel will be masterful in the eyes of most members. How on earth can you judge the "personal effort" just from a submission? There might be some that play a game for a few weeks then submit their personal best. Sure, it's not worthy in your eyes...but so what? They played it for a few weeks...are proud of their score so are sharing it. That is what MARP is about....whether their score is truly masterful or just average, it deserves to be here.

There is really no way to separate those replays from those that are played once or twice and whatever they score..good or bad is submitted.

Heck, a third of my replays are actually that! My 300k regular speed mspac score....was my first full game playing it in MAME. Most of my turbo varieties of pacman are only ONE game played....whatever I scored if it got a top 3 place I submitted it.

My personal effort is no more than that ABC submitter for those replays.

I agree with ABC submitters they likely would admit most aren't worthy either. However, rule changes to exclude those types of replays from the FEW ABC submitters, will also exclude a larger number of joe-smoes that are only average players and can't reach the level that you think rule #2 states.

I remember in the arcades...even for games I had pretty much mastered, I would be waiting to play so would watch an average gamer play the game. Surprisingly sometimes in their play...cuz they have different approaches etc. even a higher skilled player can learn something from it and incorporate it into their play and become even a better player at the game.

That is worthwhile even though I was only watching an average player set an average score for the game.

Also, especially for more obscure games, how will we know what is great versus average if there are only 2-3 scores uploaded for the game?

You only know great by comparing to your own play(saying it's better than your skill) or by comparing to others.

Think about other games...you just play local people...think your hot stuff cuz you have the high scores on the machine...then go to some tournament or event or just go to another location that has the same game and get smoked by lots in the competition. You aren't nearly as good as you thought you were. You didn't have a good enough basis for comparison from the high scores on that game in the 7-11 store!

Without the average scores also here at MARP you don't have the foundation basis on many games to easily or totally judge just how great some top scores are.

Plus you get a much better idea where you stand at the game. You might still be far below the masters, but still a great player that outscores most.

I have 100% agreed with a couple different proposals of how to alter the leaderboard to at least remove the leaderboard points as an incentive for the ABC submitters to just submit any old score they get on rom sets.

I am not sure why each of your posts seems to address me as you do. We are on the same side of that part of the issue.

However, I am concerned that any overzealous change to the leaderboard...instead of a more reasonable change that is more of a compromise of all ideas...will overall have negative results at MARP.

Half or even more than half of the suggestions, including even one of mine, are too drastic of a change I think. Look at the leaderboard..and by that I mean at least the top 100 or 200 on the leaderboard. How many of those 100-200 have really low average and tons of scores submitted?

How would you even define really low averages? below 25? below 40? below 15?

An average of 35 might actually be quite good. It all depends on the games they have submitted scores for and who has the scores above them. It's very easy with many of the classics to get a quite good score yet only get 35 points or even less for the score. For other games, you could play crappy and easily get 35 points.

There is no simple way to address all of this. I think any change and/or solutions need to be simple. It needs to be simple so members don't get turned away by some complex system even most of the editors wouldn't even fully understany. It needs to be simple so the CPU usage of running the scripts doesn't increase significantly versus current levels. The scripts often are already slow to execute. We don't want to make that even slower.

[SprintGod]

Here's the short version for anyone in a bit of a hurry:

Blah blah blah blah something blah blah repeat something state the obvious

[The TJT]

Hi all, my views of the recent blah blah

First, minimum lb overall percentage requirement is a bad idea.
Somebody would delete some of hes recordings to be at leaderboard.
To exclude some marpers totally from leaderboard is not the way go.

As I see it, this conversation is NOT only about abc-uploaders, it's also about bcd-uplEaders. Current scoring system favours quantity over quality recordings, even with cutoff
You talk about couraging average players to submit recordings for leaderboard.
How you courage me to fightback against ln2's playchoice balloonfight recording....because at current I'm number 2 and to get into number 1 would increase my percentage from 83 to 100...If I do that, with same effort I could make atleast five 60 percent lb submissions getting 300 points instead of 17.
How about couraging those players who want to make good scores and number one places to get advantage from being a good player...

If I woud have 170 first place recordings...Currently I'd get to leaderboard position 10, just below a player who has 25 firsts and not very high average. So you can beat 170 recordings with an average of 100, with about 500 recordings with an average of 32.

Which one do you think is more easy to do?

It doesn't state that you must submit a replay you feel will be masterful in the eyes of most members. How on earth can you judge the "personal effort" just from a submission? There might be some that play a game for a few weeks then submit their personal best. Sure, it's not worthy in your eyes...but so what? They played it for a few weeks...are proud of their score so are sharing it. That is what MARP is about....whether their score is truly masterful or just average, it deserves to be here.

I see the point. You want everybody be able to participate. That's good.
With a cutoff they are still able to submit and participate. I don't see why they should get leaderboard points for every submission though. Not everybody get medals at sports. If your performance is not good enough, you should not get points.

Do you want leaderboard just to be a tool to make many average players submit more at marp, or do you want it to have something to do with how good a player is.
Heck, even I have couple of good recordings that are at place 5 or 6. I think they're ok play, but I still wouldn't want to have leaderboard points from them.

Tommi

[Weehawk]

First, minimum lb overall percentage requirement is a bad idea.
Somebody would delete some of hes recordings to be at leaderboard

Thank's Tommi.

When I got home from work and saw this line of reasoning I was literally stunned.

I, for one, would definitely vote against anything like that.

We were concerned about members submitting recordings solely for leaderboard points....with a system like boxster suggested we'd have people deleting recordings to try and make the cutoff....bizarre.

[LN2]

How you courage me to fightback against ln2's playchoice balloonfight recording....because at current I'm number 2 and to get into number 1 would increase my percentage from 83 to 100...If I do that, with same effort I could make atleast five 60 percent lb submissions getting 300 points instead of 17.
How about couraging those players who want to make good scores and number one places to get advantage from being a good player...

True...but that's up to each gamer. As you have seen, I choose to compete with you TJT on Balloon Fight where we both played the game a lot and improved a lot raising the bar over and over again. It's each gamer's decision whether to do that competition versus saying screw it...not worth the 15 more LB pts...and just play other games.

I have been in competition with others as I have been with you recently as well. QT Quazar and I went back and forth for a few weeks on Major Havoc and it's clones. He then moved and became inactive. I could have beaten his scores back for the first places and LB points, but given he wasn't available to compete I didn't care.

No change to your above really unless you only gave LB points for the top score would change that. You could still say for a rom set that doesn't have well established scores yet that the person of the 3rd place score doesn't go for the 2nd place score just for those extra 15-20 points...but instead plays other games. I am sure you are to a degree like I am getting a little tired of Balloon Fight. If I beat your score you liekly will sigh and think...oh crap, I have to play this game more now...which means you really don't want to....except to get the top score back.

People should play the games cuz they are fun...cuz the competition is fun etc. I don't think just submitting a ton of scores you get playing each and every game only a couple times is fun at all. That's me though. Others might get enough fun seeing their name climb up the leaderboard to keep submitting more scores regardless of skill as long as it earns at least 1 LB point.

If I woud have 170 first place recordings...Currently I'd get to leaderboard position 10, just below a player who has 25 firsts and not very high average...Which one do you think is more easy to do?

I think nearly all can answer that. I also think nearly all can EASILY figure that out by viewing the leaderboard. If they see a gamer at 10th on the leaderboard that has 100+ top scores, they will be admired more than someone higher on the leaderboard that only has 30 top scores and half the average points per submission.

As you noted, Hisa/Novice is at #20(well, he actually is at 19 now), yet all know of him cuz he only submits top scores and most are for fighter/shooter type games where he plays those games at a level higher than everyone else.

Everyone can make that conclusion whether they see him at #7 or #15 or #19 or #76 on the leaderboard.

I use the average points a lot....using BBH as an example. Anyone averaging 60 points or higher for that is doing pretty good...whether they are in the top 5 of the leaderboard or #19 or #58.

The opposite is true also. If I see a player quite high up on the leaderboard that only has a handful of top 3 finishes and 100s of "others"(meaning 4th place or lower) that tells me the same thing whether they are in the top 5 or #19 or #76.

The sorted order of the leaderboard doesn't affect how I judge how skilled the various gamers are for me at all.

I see the point. You want everybody be able to participate. That's good.
With a cutoff they are still able to submit and participate. I don't see why they should get leaderboard points for every submission though.

Not all submissions get LB points....look at the tons that get ZERO or maybe only 1 or 2 LB points.

Remember, my first suggestion was to keep the current system, but only add the conditional that if the #pts for a score calculates to less than 10...make that ZERO.

Your above logic would support this type of change. yes, for some games it means even the second place score would get ZERO. There are many games now where second place gets only 5-10 points.

Not everybody get medals at sports. If your performance is not good enough, you should not get points.

Actually most sports and events I never played in, you do get something just for participating. Sure, it might be a ribbon or paper certificate instead of a metal or trophy...but it's still something.

Do you want leaderboard just to be a tool to make many average players submit more at marp, or do you want it to have something to do with how good a player is.

If it was a wide spread issue then I would agree with where you are going here. I see it as only 3-5 out of the 100s that participate at MARP. Do you really want a new system to just stiffle those 3-5 yet also end up stiffling 10, 20, 30+ others who are honestly trying their best at some games but just lack the skill or natural talent?

Track-n-Field is actually a good example here. Anyone that scores 90+k for the game is playing at a very high skill level. However, a 90k game would only be good for 5th place...getting absolutely ZERO points with most of the new ideas for the leaderboard.

The result is that highly skilled gamer at T-n-F might not even bother submitting his 90k score.

Circus Charlie is another great example. 3 are tied with the max score of 999,990 points. If someone were to get a score of 949,000 points, they would get ZERO under many of the new systems proposed in these discussions. That just doesn't seem right to me. Ok, perhaps they haven't quite mastered it to the level the top couple have...but they have achieved something with their score. It deserves some credit.

However, does Keeway in 16th place for the game still deserve to get 1 LB point? Nope....that's why my 2 proposals were to require a certain percentage of the top score beyond the top 3 or 5 to assign LB points or to have the system where below 10 points you just give 0 pts to those.

This would zero out 99% of all those "cheap" scores from earning any LB points. Yes, it does mean for a game like T-n-F that 10th place would still be getting a few points. However, 10th place is still a fairly decent score.

I don't want to do something as drastic as many suggest which would take that 900+k score which is good for only 4th place and make it worth ZERO also.

[boxster]

We were concerned about members submitting recordings solely for leaderboard points....with a system like boxster suggested we'd have people deleting recordings to try and make the cutoff....bizarre.

How is this any different from what happens under the current system? MARPers are already deleting recordings under the current system to raise their averages. I've seen players delete 2nd or 3rd place recordings just to keep their averages near 100%.

If the intent here is to reduce the number of "junk" recordings at MARP, a cutoff system would lead people to delete their low-point recordings.

It's not perfect, but it's an easy solution to the issue of ABC uploaders and players who upload en masse just for leaderboard points.

[Mr. Kelly R. Flewin]

How is this any different from what happens under the current system? MARPers are already deleting recordings under the current system to raise their averages. I've seen players delete 2nd or 3rd place recordings just to keep their averages near 100%.

Actually I have done this myself, mind you it's not primarily for a better average as it is... "Blah... I was interested once, but never again will I play this game... score goes delete".. and for those games it was pretty blah scores with hope to improve.. but well.. yeah... never did happen. Mind you for my other current scores, I actually do go over them once in a while and try to upgrade them before thinking of submitting scores for new games.

But then that's just me...


Kelly

[xanadu71]

Just 2 suggestions.

Instead of the best score for 1st place, why don't we classify by level attempted ?
Let me explain : when i've come first here, i was astonished by the score of the players. But i've discovered a new kind of leaderboard. At JVRM.net, we classify players by level attempted. Like that, a player who makes a big score but low level is forced to play to go beyond.
I think this method is more right.

For the points : like formula 1 : 1 = 10 pts; 2 = 8 pts, etc...
Only 8 players with points but again, that's forced others players to go beyond.

But it's just my opinion.
No complicated formulas

[LN2]

Instead of the best score for 1st place, why don't we classify by level attempted ?

Care to fill us in what you mean by "level attempted"?!? I have no idea what your post is saying.

Also, another comment to the above, ALL of the score systems at some level have quantity over quality.

The leaderboard will never conclusively show the best gamers. That is up to each gamer to decide on their own from looking at scores and replays of others. Which is a better gamer....one who can play the game a lot in 1 night and reach a high score or someone that had played the game regularly over months or years to achieve a similar score? The leaderboard will never reflect that kind of thing. Which is the better gamer...one who just plays the games and masters it themself and set a high score or a gamer who reads gaming magazines or web sites or watches replays of others to learn tricks or secrets in the game to be able to reach that top score? The leaderboard will never reflect that kind of thing either.

This is why I look at the leaderboard as a leaderboard of contributors to the MARP site. The leaderboard isn't suggesting an order of who the better gamers are at MARP. It's a combo of quality AND quantity. Some aren't as high as they could be simply cuz they won't submit or in a few cases even remove scores not 1st or 2nd. That's sad cuz for one I would like to know what level these gamers play other types of games versus just the ones they excel at. That way you get a much better overall picture.

This could even inspire some gamers where for a particular game they are able to beat the score of a well-admired and well-known gamer. If that well known gamer is only submitting their best, others are missing out on possibly knowing they are better at a couple games versus even the best overall gamers.....or just the same skill level at that game versus the best. That can be far more satisfying than if you are #53 vs #35 on the leaderboard.

This is something you get to see in the Deca competitions where you see which games certain players are strong at and other games they are just average players or even below average players. It's cool to see that. If all you saw from that player was their absolute best, you aren't seeing as much of the overall picture.

If someone has submitted only 1 top score to MARP, even if it's an amazing replay with a score no one could touch, and that is their only score submitted to MARP, have they contributed more to MARP and thus should have more LB points versus someone that has submitted 5-10 very good top 3 scores?

Quantity will always win out at some level. This is where the average statistic shown in the leaderboard is nice to see. The average isn't reflected by quantity at all. You can judge more from that than just the absolute leaderboard position.

The current system and how it's a combination of quantity and quality seems to work for most. The top 20 changes little overall using these other systems.

Face it, even the best gamer in the world will need quite a bit of quantity to reach the top 10 regardless which scoring system is used.

Ideally in the long term all the top 3 scores for almost every rom set will be high scores and tough for any ABC uploader or aveage gamer to approach...so those uploads wouldn't mean much then.

Most of us know gamers like Don Hayes are likely among the very best....yet aren't anywhere near the top 10(regardless what system is used) simply cuz lack of quantity.

I hope the new system doesn't throw off the current "balance" of quantity vs quality. It works for most. No system will work for all. If you reduce the factor of quantity too much then you risk lowering total participation. That would be bad for MARP IMHO. All should be welcome.

I personally don't care how the leaderboard is changed as long as it doesn't discourage participation.

Without participation from gamers submitting even average scores which most of us could easily get you have no basis of foundation of what is an average score versus a great score versus a masterfully ridiculous score.

[xanadu71]

Care to fill us in what you mean by "level attempted"?!? I have no idea what your post is saying.

Sorry, i'm just tired. It's not "level attempted" but "level reached".