Tier Point Overhaul (Concept)

[rushyrulz]

Introduction
I think it's no secret that tier points have lost their way in FFR over the years. The last revision to them was nearly a decade ago, and while the files do still represent a broad range of skill sets, it still seems a bit clunky and arbitrary. The title may be a bit misleading, as I am not actually looking to overhaul the tier point system, but rather replace it entirely, using some existing elements from it as a baseline.

One might ask, what is the problem with the existing tier points system?
First off, I would say that the number of tier points a player has doesn't really tell you much about their play style, what they are unusually good at, and what they need to improve on.
Secondly, tier points being awarded for percentage of AAAs introduces "completionist creep" similar to how the percentage-based achievement tokens like the original Here We Go requirement got harder and harder as new songs were added to the game.

While completionist content is not bad for the game, having it be a component to tier points doesn't fit, in my opinion, when the FC / AAA status bars on the user profile should be sufficient.

The Concept
This isn't the first time something like this will have been proposed for FFR. The reason is that I believe a lot of players feel the game lacks on the statistics side of things: a graph showcasing the strengths and weaknesses of the player. A graph, like the one displayed below, allows someone to easily determine what their own strengths and weaknesses are, and those of the other players around them. We can use the existing tier point system as a baseline by assigning values 1-6 to each existing TP file for each of the categories listed below.



The Categories
Jackhammers:
Repeated notes in quick succession, includes jacks, trills, and to a lesser extent, anchors, running-men.

Speed:
High BPM, high NPS

Stamina:
containing long-lasting sections of intensity and/or lengthy songs in general (I would consider consistency to be a part of stamina)

Technique:
Unusual patterning, grace notes, swing, bpm changes, time signature changes, jazzy drum fills, etc. Anything that breaks the mold from standard 4th note on the beat patterning.

Rolls:
fast, repetitive, may be manip'd. Doesn't need to fit the "dictionary" definition of rolls in the sense that it's 12341234 or 43214321

Jumps:
Gluts, hands, quads, chordjacks, jump density in general.

How do we do it?
I think we can start by using the existing tier point files and assigning whole-number maximum values for each. For example:

Magnum
Jackhammers: 4
Speed: 2
Stamina: 2
Technique: 3
Rolls: 0
Jumps: 4

A AAA on Magnum would award these maximum values which would contribute to the overall total points a player can earn for each category, and the points awarded would scale down to some 0-point (we could use the 1 TP value here for example, beyond which no points would be awarded for the file). The graph would be constructed as a percentage of the maximum, meaning scoring well one one file and simply not playing the rest won't give you a very good graph.

For instance, let's say there are 50 hand-picked files which are chosen to be encompassing of these categories and, when added up, the points totals look something like this:
Jackhammers: 248
Speed: 237
Stamina: 255
Technique: 229
Rolls: 182
Jumps: 261

For a player to reach the edge of the graph in any of these categories, they would need to obtain one of these maximums. Alternatively, if the player does not have any points in a given category, it would be reflected as 0 or nothing on their graph.

The existing Tier points page could even be used to track these macro values, like so:


Who will maintain this?
The ones who should be responsible for maintaining this system would be the difficulty consultants, in my opinion, as they are already the most familiar with what constitutes difficulty in a file, and what is considered challenging for the player base as a whole. Feedback systems for challenging these concepts already exist for the community at large, and could be used for this system as well.

As with tier points, there shouldn't be a need to be constantly maintaining this system. Once a selection of files are chosen, it really doesn't need to be updated unless new files are introduced which do a better job of testing the attributes that a previous one was aiming to do. Let's consider an example of when something might need to be replaced using the existing TP system:

Currently, Club is a tier point file which aims to test primarily jacks, with a little bit of Jumps and Technique mixed in, however it has the downside of being easily mirrorable which can skew results. If a new file were to be released which has similar length, difficulty, and challenging parts, without the capability to mirror for improved performance, it might be a good candidate to replace Club.

Conclusion
Tier points are a relic of FFR that don't seem to tell much about a player's skill level. The song list for tier points has gone unattended for a long time, and there is a looming atrophy of AAA percentage which negatively impacts tier points over time as new songs are added. Overhauling the system and converting it into a graph-based system would resolve most of these issues, while giving tier points a unique place in FFR, rather than its current state of being a secondary skill rating.

In terms of this pitch, nothing is set in stone, not even the categories, graph shape, etc. I do think that this needs to be kept to a finite list of hand-selected files, as a programmatic assignment of points to files would be a huge undertaking, and wouldn't necessarily be accurate. Manual assignment for every file is probably not possible given the sheer volume of content in the game.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated!