"The Leaderboard"

[The TJT]

Rick, I can see your points are good at many counter-arguments. There are allways two sides of the coin. Nobody's completely wrong here. Important is that there is discussion. I don't know if there can be total agreement what the scoring system should be...

I think this thread is not only about abc uploads, they are only some nice colourful pictures at uploads-page for me.
My suggestions are not carved into stone. Percentages can be changed etc. How about 100-50-25-10-5? I think getting one first place is atleast 2 times harder than getting 2nd place.
There must be suggestions to get things going. Obviously we have to know what we want before...Do we want to courage any upload, top 5 uploads?...Do we want to try leaderboard to show players skills or only want it to courage players play more etc.

I've now made my suggestions, and leave speaking to others for a while, maybe
It would be nice to have more of Marp core participating at this thread, can not know what people want if they don't speak.

Cheers, TJT

[LN2]

Percentages can be changed etc. How about 100-50-25-10-5? I think getting one first place is atleast 2 times harder than getting 2nd place.

I think the net result of that is if a highly skilled gamer thinks they can get the top or 2nd place score then they will do it. otherwise they likely wouldn't bother because it's not worth it ...leaderboard points wise.

On the other hand, those ABC submitters don't mind playing to get only a handful of points per submission will gladly play to get 4th and 5th place for only a handful of points.

I think 100-50-25-10-5 is too harsh UNLESS you are talking about the alternate place scoring analogous to the current 10-3-1 scoring. The 100-50-25-10-5 would be an improvement over the 10-3-1 place weight.

By a set "50" for 2nd you have no idea how close that 2nd place score is to 1st place unless you actually lookup the scores. That doesn't reveal as much information.

it's also unfair IMHO in cases where the top player has 10 times the 2nd place score versus both being really close.

ie. take balloon fight. If you were to submit a score of 1.5 million now, it doesn't change your points at all, but would drastically lower the points everyone else receives for their scores for the game. So in a sense you are gaining points versus the others that played that game by setting a new high for yourself.

With a set 100-50-25-10-5 system, it doesn't matter if your score is only 10 points higher than mine or 1 million points higher. The LB points all receive for scores for that game don't change from that new score submission.

I think the LB points awarded still has to have a nearly proportionate weighting based on the actual game scores.

For MOST, the current system works fine. If you view the ordering of the leaderboard using the 10-3-1 points system, the ordering is largely the same as using the 0-100 LB points system. Yes, there are a couple major changes...like Frankie not even in the top 10 and Novice and a couple others moving up 5-10 spots, but at least in the top 20...overall not really a huge difference between the 2 point systems.

the real flaw in the current leaderboard is simply those that have submitted tons of scores getting 5-10 LB points for most of those scores each which still adds up.

The problem is for some games the gamer maybe put in a real effort and played the game a lot just to get 7th place. They shouldn't be treated the same as someone who submitted 50 scores all for rom sets starting with the latter "g" on the same day.

Maybe the only thing that really needs to be done is limit members to 3 uploads per day or something similar. Yes, in the long term those ABC submitters could still work up to 1000+ submissions...but at least you are making them spread it out over a year or 2 versus now where certain days you view the uploads page and you see the last 50 hits are all by 1 gamer.

[Weehawk]

It would be nice to have more of Marp core participating at this thread, can not know what people want if they don't speak.

An excellent point.

I think I'm getting a pretty good idea where we're going with this, but I plan to let the discussion go on a while before I start formulating specific options for a poll.

Let's take our time and do it right.

[mahlemiut]

One thing I don't like about a 10-3-1 setup is the large difference between 1st and 2nd - there are many instances where first and second place are quite close. Especially with WRX2 beating scores by such small amounts, and their backlog of recordings. I feel a 10-3-1 system offers even less encouragement for people to upload their absolute best. With a percentage system you can gain on others by improving first place scores.

Maybe it's worth just giving LB points for the top 5 or 7 places. I personally doubt that alphabet uploading would stop entirely, whatever is done. Everyone will have a different idea of what they should upload. If someone thinks that 240 on Arkanoid is a decent score, then so be it. Just don't expect a wild rush for it to be watched by others. Or bitch when others laugh at you.

What I thought might be an idea, is to seperate the two leaderboard systems, having one with 10-3-1 scoring (although I'd prefer 10-7-5-3-1), and the other with percentage scoring. Then it's up to you which leaderboard you think is worthwhile.

[Patwos]

I too have always hated the ABC uploaders. Here's another idea/thought that is a combination of Tommi and Rick's suggestions, or maybe very similar to their's as well.

I agree with Tommi's assertion that having only percentage based scoring detracts from the likelihood of people competing over 2nd place in a game where one player is massively better at that game than anyone else. eg: galagads. If I knew that moving ahead of the 2nd place player would also help my LB points, then I would definitely put more effort in versus another 200k adding only 1 lousy LB point even though it moves me into 2nd place.

I also agree that for low scoring games where the top scores are all very close, such as TNF, percentage only based scoring does not reward the 1st place getter as much as it should.

I also agree, aren't I an agreeable chap, with Rick's assertion that a strictly place based scoring mechanism does not adequately reward a significantly superior score - the inverse of point 1 above.

I also agree that by going with a purely placed based scoring mechanism it reduces the reward that another truly good score that was oh so close to getting into a point scoring place to the point where it scores zip seems somewhat unfair - of course it does give one that urge to try again to get just a few more points to take a point scoring place, but if it take several hours to get there you probably won't bother versus a game that only took a few minutes to get that close.

My suggestion would be to split the "100" points that you can potentially earn from any submission into place based and percentage based scores, with a minimum percentage required for the percentage based score to prevent ABC uploaders from gaining points without some effort.

eg: - these are only suggestions of the place based values

1st place = 50 points
2nd place = 30 points
3rd place = 20 points
4th place = 15 points
5th place = 10 points

You would then combine this with score/highscore/2 to get the percentage based scores - and 1st place still equals 50 points.

Scores outside of the top 5 places would still be eligible for earning their percentage based scores, although there would be a minimum percentage of the high-score that would need to be achieved in order to earn these percentage based points to get rid of the ABC uploaders.

There would still be a reasonable incentive for increasing your score from 6th place to 5th place as you would score an additional 10 points as well as additional points from improving on your percentage - or in a game with a massively better high-score you may significantly increase your points by spending more time and effort on the game, which is partly what we are trying to achieve by discouraging ABC uploaders.

For tightly contested games, such as TNF, this adds extra weight to the top 5 placed scores, encouraging people to get into a placed position if they are only just outside of the top 5. People would then have an extra incentive to fight over the nth placed scores to ensure they keep their placed points.

Ok, I believe that answers Tommi's request for more old-timers to add in their thoughts. Thank-you for taking the time to read this and as mentioned previously this is a discussion and not a flaming session so please take these points in the manner in which they were intended as constructive suggestions in this discussion.

The other Pat.

[LN2]

You would then combine this with score/highscore/2 to get the percentage based scores - and 1st place still equals 50 points.

I sort of like that hybrid way of doing it....would your 50 pts percentage part be done as now except based on 50 or strictly a percent of the highest score?

it seems you still would need that 15% dropoff per position otherwise for a game where tons have posted scores all close....that you don't have a 10th place person able to still 45 points from getting 90% of the top score. That's more LB points than they would currently get.

Would it stop those ABC uploaders? It would only make their really low place score out of 50 instead of 100. Instead of getting the 4 pts they get 2 instead.

[Buttermaker]

Buttermaker, just a thought...instead of trying to assist with changes you keep saying you want the leaderboard removed blah blah blah...

The definition of "blah blah blah" himself tells me my posts consist of blah blah blah.

or changed but aren't suggesting or commenting on any suggestions to help.

Wrong. My argument about 4th place in the Olympics not getting anything should've told you that I like not giving anybody below 3rd anything.

ok, so based on this theory ALL scores for Vs. Balloon Fight from a 4 year period were all sorry scores not worthy of MARP.

You didn't understand what I said. Looks like I'll have to repeat it.

I know when I look up a game and no scores are found for it I generally assume it's not working so don't bother even trying it.

Non-working games are archived. Let ***PL*** know if you find one that isn't.

Yes, for me personally, even then I would play the game several times and achieve what I felt was a semi-decent score before submitting it...but even that might not be the level of "skill" you seem to demand.

Here's the repetition mentioned above: Uploading that score is perfectly fine if you intend on competing once you get beaten.

Don't reply. Let's leave it at that.

[LN2]

Here's the repetition mentioned above: Uploading that score is perfectly fine if you intend on competing once you get beaten.

I see...so I should delete my pacman 3,322,900 score then cuz if someone beats it I have no intention of competing to try and get first place back.

Based on that statement almost no scores would be submitted.

...or do you still mean something different?

Remember, we generally are in agreement about ABC submitters.

[Buttermaker]

I see...so I should delete my pacman 3,322,900 score then cuz if someone beats it I have no intention of competing to try and get first place back.

No, that score is great no matter what. I said already that as long as a replay is great it doesn't matter what place it has.

Based on that statement almost no scores would be submitted.

...or do you still mean something different?

For the love of god, please learn to see the big picture and not only the last statement I made.

[Mr. Kelly R. Flewin]

Just a crazy idea that popped into my head... there's an option to not show yourself in the leaderboard.. correct? If such is the case, how about a special flag or something that Editors can add to a players account, going along the lines of;

"Permanently remove name from Leaderboard"

or replace permanently with something else...


But with this flag, the editors can click on it on for ALL ALPHABET UPLOADERS!

This way, those of us who do it to compete, can leave the LB alone and these AU's will simply no longer become a problem. And it's rather obvious if someone's an AU as opposed to just struggling in some games.

Just my 23 cents.


Kelly

[Patwos]

it seems you still would need that 15% dropoff per position otherwise for a game where tons have posted scores all close....that you don't have a 10th place person able to still 45 points from getting 90% of the top score. That's more LB points than they would currently get.

If we are already separately awarding the top 5, then I don't necessarily see the need to penalise the percentage score for each subsequent score after the top 5. They have presumably spent time to produce this reasonable score, which is really what we want to see rather than the current ABC uploaders spending stuff all time on the game. Also, we're already penalising them 50% by not getting into the top 5.

Would it stop those ABC uploaders? It would only make their really low place score out of 50 instead of 100. Instead of getting the 4 pts they get 2 instead.

I was still suggesting that there be a minimum percentage that you need to achieve before you get any points on the percentage side of things so yes, this would help prevent the ABC uploaders as they would likely not get to that minimum percentage without investing some modicum of time and effort into the game.

Cheers,
The Other Pat.

[Frankie]

Why not keep the system we use, but sort by average instead of points?

You get onto the leaderboard as soon as you've uploaded a certain number of recordings, maybe 25.

If more than one player have an average of 100% then the second criteria would be how many first places you have. So the player with 34 first places would be number one on the leaderboard, ahead of the player with 'only' 28 first places.

The danger of such a system could be that players would delete their good second places, but it would make people fight more against each other to take away first places from each other, unlike today.

Or maybe to avoid people from deleting their good second places, we simply disallow to delete recordings not out of the top five, that way to keep your perfect average of 100% you must fight back when someone pushes your topscore down into second place, or accept you no longer have the perfect average.

This will make a leaderboard really showing the top players, and it would
stop the so-called ABC uploaders. At least for players who cares about the
leaderboard, they will think twice before uploading something.

I know this idea goes a long way off the rest of the solutions, and there's
probably a lot of things I haven't thought about that's wrong with it, its
just an idea.

[mahlemiut]

So all the japanese players with a handful of firsts go ahead of BBH's 275 firsts? Not taking anything away from the japanese players, but something isn't quite right with that for me.

[Frankie]

So all the japanese players with a handful of firsts go ahead of BBH's 275 firsts? Not taking anything away from the japanese players, but something isn't quite right with that for me.

Yeah the Japanese

I just think that this would make people compete more, but it would probably be to big a change of the leaderboard as it is now.

[diabolik]

I would be happy with almost any scoring system that gives lb-points only to top 5 players (preferably top 3).