"Ranking Degredation" for song scores

[TC_Halogen]

Originally Posted by Dinglesberry

That's a good point as well, low division prizes don't really make sense. I guess the entire issue is that the prizes in general are kind of useless.. What good is credits? Every division, its all just about getting the support tokens, maybe that's the issue.

Regardless, people are going to cheat in tournaments or in competitive games, they always will. Perhaps FFR is going to need some sort of anti cheat or something that analyzes your gameplay and detects when you are sandbagging lol.. I guess thats the issue when it comes to a small community with a 7 division system where everyone is still good, there's going to be people smurfing all along the lower divisions.

Maybe the solution is to improve the prizes and incentive to compete in tournaments by making the prizes more relevant to the skill bracket... How that's accomplished, that's the difficult part There has to be something better than throwing credits and a couple tokens that are impossible to unlock otherwise at the player...

That feel when you are trying to think of new ideas in a game that's over 12 years old in a community that has people playing for 12 years ago ;D

Credits have less meaning for players that have been around for as long as they have. Offer a person like me 100k credits as the prize for a tournament win, and I might not even flinch. Offer that same prize amount as first prize to a D1 player whose credit output is so slow, they couldn't dream of getting 100k credits in their first 6-12 months of play, and suddenly it seems like a great idea.

FFR does have, and has had an anti-cheat for a while. It has been used to catch numerous players in previous official tournaments.

Prize improvements are not as easy as you think being that the site is non-profit and tournament fundraisers can only go so far. The purpose of picking an extreme difficult to unlock token is to give users something to play for -- giving the opportunity for a more common token is useless. But, this is why the site needs to go a little bit further in figuring out other content that could be rewardable (or alternatively, possible to spend a ton of credits on).

Believe us when we say that these are things that have been discussed for quite some time.

[inDheart]

sorting people for OT is like trying to get people to sign up for Project Purple: you hope they have something to offer you, but you can't tell them what it is or what aim it serves. the blindness means they have to play a damn good cheating/sandbag game, rather than accidentally do bad once or twice.

anticheats are hard. something i played would just drop your score from the tables if you dropped x frames, which meant anyone with some degree of regular lag wouldn't get their scores recorded at all. wasn't the best idea

eta ^ what i meant to say by that is they're not everything

[Wayward Vagabond]

falso want to add this this is a great idea for someone like me that won't ever get to previous levels of play because of an accident. This is the whole reason I made a seperate account to keep track of the scores I am able to get now without having my previous scores influence what my current skill is

[TC_Halogen]

Originally Posted by Wayward Vagabond

falso want to add this this is a great idea for someone like me that won't ever get to previous levels of play because of an accident. This is the whole reason I made a seperate account to keep track of the scores I am able to get now without having my previous scores influence what my current skill is

And unfortunately, for every person like you who wants to do it with a legitimate reason will be one or more people who will try to exploit this.

[MinaciousGrace]

i agree with this proposal

i believe it is sound logical practice to reduce the value of a score based on how long ago it was attained

i also think we should expand on this

i think that the aaa equivalency should be reduced for every other player each time a new player aaa's a file. this includes the values for players that have already previously aaa'd a file

clearly we can see by applying basic logic that the value of a score is not static as time from the score achieved increases or the number of aaas on the said file also increases

additionally we should reduce the aaa equivalency of all odd ID'd songs by the cubic root of the new ID of a new song every time a new song is added

even ID'd songs will have their values adjusted by the cubic root of the new id of a new song subtracted from the id of the previous song added

the direction of the adjustment will be determined by the opacity of gerbil piss

in addition











yeah you get the idea this is stupid

[TC_Halogen]

holy fuck lmfao

[inDheart]

i wish i could rate mina posts 5/5

edit: of course that rating degrades with subsequent posts though so it's consolation at best

[igotrhythm]

Originally Posted by TC_Halogen

That's not quite the same though. Think about it for a moment: if a user has two accounts and is aware of this ranking degradation concept, they can show an older account they have - we'll arbitrarily say that this account is account A, and D5 based off of their level ranks, but gets dropped a division based off of not playing for a while... or so we thought. So, with this degrade, they're showing D4.

Again, these values are arbitrary.

They enter the tournament under a secondary account, account B, in hopes of not being detected/linked up at all with that previous account, because it shows better scores, and they get placed in D3. An IP check, along with other methods of verification, confirms that they are the same as account A, and they get placed back in D4, despite showing D5 stats due to having "degraded" level ranks.

...whoops, they've been playing offline engines and other offsite content to keep their skills sharp and are simply waiting until the tournament progresses to showcase the skill that never lost -- i.e. they're a D5 player, sitting in D4, and are playing other content continuously, only recording relevant scores that would otherwise keep them in a D4 status.

Anything even remotely close to this promotes sandbagging and will be absolute hell to accommodate for. It's shitty to have to accommodate for past skill, I get that - but, you run the risk of ruining the enjoyment of the tournament for a much larger group by inserting someone who later turns out to be a massive sandbagger. We all remember what happened when NeoMasterPie got put in D1 during the 7th Official Tournament - and yes, it's not exactly sandbagging in that case as much as it was sheer stupidity on the part of the tournament host, but... it's the same concept of skill not being effectively measured.

Bolded part is my argument in a shellnut.

Placing people based on their best scores ever, no matter how long ago they got them, is the simplest and most foolproof method of avoiding sandbaggers. Better to put someone too high than too low.

Personal experience that may or may not be relevant: I was actually in a tournament with Zenith once. The final round song was that one Virt thing with the super long trill at the end (I forget the name, but I think it's around a 70). I was working my ass off to get 20 or so, and out of nowhere Zenith gets an SDG. Much arguing ensued, and AJ ended up paying Zenith the first prize out of his own pocket if he would step down and give it to me instead.

[blanky!]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

i think that the aaa equivalency should be reduced for every other player each time a new player aaa's a file. this includes the values for players that have already previously aaa'd a file

Actually this is what chesstempo does for problems and it isn't a bad idea when there are thousands of active users and statistics actually works. Unfortunately this is FFR, so...

[Dinglesberry]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

yeah you get the idea this is stupid

Upon reading your logic, you are right. Taking it literally, god forbid they lower the value of songs based on number of AAAs, all the tournament smurfs who make accounts to play in fake divisions are going to start making new accounts to AAA songs and troll people to lower their max rank!11!1 The same max rank they got 7 years ago.

I think this old style system of what rank is is stupid. FFR isn't a game like chess where it's all just a matter of thinking and you can retain skill. Your skill does and will degrade over time of not playing because FFR takes physical endurance to play.

It's like saying someone can be good at skateboarding, for example, 10 years ago. Sure, they could pick it up now and probably still remember things, but they would definitely be below their peak and would need to practice. You'd remember how to do the motions to flip the board but would still need to work on the physical muscle memory of doing it.

[MinaciousGrace]

@blanky
i think that the practicality of that doesn't really apply to accomplishments grounded in physical achievements though

a 30ft longjump doesn't become less than 30ft just because someone else did it

it doesn't really make any sense here either as the physical requirement to achieve any given score remains the same regardless of how many people also achieve the score

scores just become worse relativistically as players become better

the key is the difference between relative achievement and absolute

in a game like chess there is no measurement of an absolute achievement so only a relative system can exist (elo etc)

in the physical world however you don't need to compete against other players to become better, you're competing against a measurable facet of reality

@whoever op is
reducing the value of scores in any capacity is entirely illogical, stupid, nonproductive, and cancerous

if your argument is that how a player's skill is estimated based on their achieved scores should be altered based on circumstance that's a different, less completely retarded question

one which every other post in the thread addresses

[Dinglesberry]

I honestly have no idea what you are even talking about. I never once said that scores should literally lose their value, the entire time I have been saying that your rank on your profile should be weighted more weakly from these old scores, not that you delete the old scores or make them lower or something.

I seem to get the impression that FFR players don't want the old scores deleted, and that many have proposed cleaning them, and I completely agree with you all. That's not what I'm suggesting.

Your analogy makes sense for something that doesn't require any physical skills. If someone jumped 30 ft on long jump 10 years ago, that would be great. If that person came to me and said they could long jump 30 feet, and that they did it 10 years ago, I wouldn't believe them on that sole fact and they would have to prove it.

Also, obviously this would require more than just "remove x rank if its y years old". It's a completely different issue at the very top levels of playing, where perhaps you could be active but not have a better score for a year. It also wouldn't be removing ranks of songs you may have AAA'd years ago and never touched, and I'm not proposing to remove scores from the leaderboards.

I just mean to propose that if you are stagnate and not improving on your scores at all, or if you do not have a new score in the top 15 (etc, 15 is an arbitrary amount), the weighting for YOUR songs decreases. You would still have the same ranks on the songs and your scores wouldn't delete, the song would just weight less. If people view the songs level rank, your score will be right there.

Two options could be make them weighted half (e.g. Your first song is worth 12% instead of 24%), or to make it use your 16-30 scores to base your rank on rather than 1-15.

[Walrusizer]

but that would require me to play the 90+ files in this game that i hate again eventually to be d7 again i dont want to do that dawg

[TC_Halogen]

My counter-argument didn't mention physical scores being removed. But my counter-example clearly indicates that reduction of score power in any capacity should be completely disregarded.

There shouldn't be half weighting, partial weighting... any change in weighting. Scores should be taken in account in entirety, because unfortunately, history has shown - time and time again, that users will attempt to exploit the system and/or go further and cheat (and there are some bigger names that have done this).

[MinaciousGrace]

Originally Posted by Dinglesberry

My suggestion is: For the top 50 scores formula, implement some sort of AAA equivalency degradation.

sorry i got baited by this into thinking you meant something dumber than you did mean

so lets back track and refer to every other post in the thread as to why your idea is terrible

but also your long jump logic makes absolutely no sense
actually nothing you write really makes any sense

you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist

[igotrhythm]

Originally Posted by Dinglesberry

I honestly have no idea what you are even talking about. I never once said that scores should literally lose their value, the entire time I have been saying that your rank on your profile should be weighted more weakly from these old scores, not that you delete the old scores or make them lower or something.

I seem to get the impression that FFR players don't want the old scores deleted, and that many have proposed cleaning them, and I completely agree with you all. That's not what I'm suggesting.

Your analogy makes sense for something that doesn't require any physical skills. If someone jumped 30 ft on long jump 10 years ago, that would be great. If that person came to me and said they could long jump 30 feet, and that they did it 10 years ago, I wouldn't believe them on that sole fact and they would have to prove it.

Also, obviously this would require more than just "remove x rank if its y years old". It's a completely different issue at the very top levels of playing, where perhaps you could be active but not have a better score for a year. It also wouldn't be removing ranks of songs you may have AAA'd years ago and never touched, and I'm not proposing to remove scores from the leaderboards.

I just mean to propose that if you are stagnate and not improving on your scores at all, or if you do not have a new score in the top 15 (etc, 15 is an arbitrary amount), the weighting for YOUR songs decreases. You would still have the same ranks on the songs and your scores wouldn't delete, the song would just weight less. If people view the songs level rank, your score will be right there.

Two options could be make them weighted half (e.g. Your first song is worth 12% instead of 24%), or to make it use your 16-30 scores to base your rank on rather than 1-15.

I'm not doubting that your argument is "let's rate people based on how good they are now". The problem with that is that there are so many ways to pretend you're not as good as you are (AJ mentioned offline/unofficial engines as one way to get better without having scores record to reflect this) that it's best to just go off of your best scores ever.

[Dinglesberry]

Originally Posted by Walrusizer

but that would require me to play the 90+ files in this game that i hate again eventually to be d7 again i dont want to do that dawg

I see your point, but looking at your scores, in the top 100 you have #19 from a couple weeks ago on a 90, then dozens that were barely a month ago. This would cause the degradation to not occur, because you are clearly still performing at your level.

[blanky!]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

in a game like chess there is no measurement of an absolute achievement so only a relative system can exist (elo etc)

Wait! I have a better example: Project Euler, which waits several weeks to see how fast users have solved problems. Don't be telling me that there isn't 'absolute' achievement in mathematics, although it still holds true that difficulties there are all ~relative~...

@Dinglesberry
Unless you're top-tier D7, you can literally make your way back up to your original skill level in at most a few weeks. Though there are better and more important arguments, this should suffice in discrediting your whole idea, haha.

[TC_Halogen]

I personally disagree with that point too - there are a number of players whose skill have decreased as a result of other reasons (injury is a very legitimate one). Those who peaked at the game and then legitimately disappeared for a long time likely won't retain their peak skill.

The issue does not lie in this being a bad idea - it lies in the fact that it could be very easily exploited. Finding a great way to accommodate for skill drops would be nice, but there's no way to blanket every situation in a way that can stop others from taking advantage of it.

[Dinglesberry]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

sorry i got baited by this into thinking you meant something dumber than you did mean

so lets back track and refer to every other post in the thread as to why your idea is terrible

but also your long jump logic makes absolutely no sense
actually nothing you write really makes any sense

you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist

I find it funny how everything I say makes no sense. I'm a returning player who unfortunately had literally 0 involvement in the community when I did play, and you don't even want to know what my initial impression is of you is, not that you care (I'm an irrelevant new player, after all). Just the fact that people react to when you started to post says enough. I'm happy for you that you are well liked in your small friend group though, congratulations.

That aside, it really is a problem. It's a factor that causes new players to not want to stay, it causes returning players frustration, and it has issues with tournament seeding and makes it so some people are unable to compete UNLESS they make a new account, which is counter intuitive and obviously from other posts, alt accounts aren't wanted. The place where it isn't really an issue is at the very top level where you are at, which is understandable why it seems useless to you.

Isn't the whole intent to have the game grow? Fostering the game for the couple thousand or so active players is great and all, but I think you underestimate how amazing this ranking system is for new lower skilled players.

EDIT: Also, I disagree with the fact that "unless you are d7 you can get your skill back in weeks", do I need to start posting examples?