Global soloist scores calculated incorrectly.

[infjamc]

Re: spmm

The answer is "almost, but not quite." (The new "overall" category cuts off at exactly 30 puzzles, which is about a 6-week window.)

[jflat06]

The system is set up to recalculate points automatically every hour. However, there is a bug in the recalculation - one that we are having trouble finding. We thought we had fixed it after the last recalculation error, but it appears not.

We will be keeping the old and new systems side by side for a while - we realize that a lot of players are very fond of the old system, and we've taken that into consideration.

However, the old system does not allow for the puzzle load to scale, and it incentivizes people playing every puzzle. While some people may be willing to try and tackle the massive load, it shouldn't be necessary to do well.

In short, the old system was 'broken' because it didn't allow us to run more puzzles, and prevented us from working on multiple avenues of discovery simultaneously.

As for being able to compare yourself against other folders, I think that comparing a rank 3 in design to a rank 7 in prediction doesn't really make sense - they're different skills.

If your point is that you want to see who's better 'overall', that's exactly what the overall leaderboard is for.

Again, we will be keeping the old scoreboards up until we think the problem is actually solved. Just know that if we are successful in getting puzzles posted in each of the categories in a constant stream, it's going to be harder and harder to keep up with that fact on the old leaderboards.

[jflat06]

This is correct. The main difference is the window size.

We were already thinking of decreasing the window size, since it forces new players to play for so long before they're able to be competitive on the leaderboards. When we implemented the new categories boards, we decided on using a number-of-puzzles window instead of time because it works better with the 'skips' we've mentioned (if you had a period of the window where there were a LOT of puzzles posted at once, there would be a disproportionately small number of skips compared to the number of puzzles).

Please remember that the actual numbers on skips/window size (and even who gets gold/silver/bronze) are subject to change - these are just the initial values that we've put up, and they're probably not optimal, so we'll likely make adjustments.

[spmm]

thanks jflat - just to avoid opening a different post slightly off topic - if we are having lots more puzzles then will there also be a review of the client Puzzle Menu? It may be just me, but I find it difficult to find puzzles now especially in devprev. Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced doesn't really help particularly when I am looking for an expired puzzle number, as the font and each entry are quite large scrolling is not that simple either.

[jflat06]

Yes, we are looking into this. Hopefully the new system will address all these issues.

[B_2]

"However, the old system does not allow for the puzzle load to scale, and it incentivizes people playing every puzzle. While some people may be willing to try and tackle the massive load, it shouldn't be necessary to do well.

In short, the old system was 'broken' because it didn't allow us to run more puzzles, and prevented us from working on multiple avenues of discovery simultaneously.

As for being able to compare yourself against other folders, I think that comparing a rank 3 in design to a rank 7 in prediction doesn't really make sense - they're different skills.

If your point is that you want to see who's better 'overall', that's exactly what the overall leaderboard is for.

Again, we will be keeping the old scoreboards up until we think the problem is actually solved. Just know that if we are successful in getting puzzles posted in each of the categories in a constant stream, it's going to be harder and harder to keep up with that fact on the old leaderboards. "

I really don't understand the reasoning here.

How does the old system prevent you from running more and different types of puzzles? All the scoring system has to do is total up the points of all the completed puzzles over the last 120 days - certainly not a difficult task for any computer.

Also, why do the new players need "help" getting up the leaderboards? They should have to work at it just as we all have since the project started. This smacks of some sort of entitlement system, or the kiddy soccer-league thing when everyone has to be a winner.

OLet's just keep the existing 120 day window the way it is, and just fix the auto-scoring. So what if it's 200 puzzles deep instead of 100? If you want to be the best, put the work into it, play all the puzzles. I'm going to be mightily pissed off if any newbie can race to the top of the leaderboard in a couple of weeks because you have made it far too easy.

[infjamc]

I'm totally speculating here, but here's my guess:

It might be possible that the old system can only handle a certain number of puzzles over a 120-day period. If this were true, then the inability to post more puzzles makes sense, because the scores for the extra puzzles beyond N would otherwise not be countable. (How could this be the case? My guess is that the server's disk space being finite might be a cause. There has been cases where users could not upload solutions or screenshots due to the server being full, for example.)

[B_2]

I seriously doubt that storing final scores for puzzles could overwhelm their system. If so, they have a lot bigger problems.

A simple table with columns for Puzzle ID

Category

Close Date

Player ID

Solo Score

Evolver Score should hardly take more than a couple of MB for every puzzle we're ever done.

[jflat06]

It is not a technical limitation. We can handle far more than a 4 month window.

The issue is social (I thought I made this clear). If we are running 15 puzzles a week, the scoreboards will not be determined by who has the most skill, but rather by who has the most time, and computational power.

Again, you might be willing to put in this time, but we are not interested in forcing people to play 24/7 in order to remain competitive.

"They should have to work at it just as we all have since the project started. This smacks of some sort of entitlement system, or the kiddy soccer-league thing when everyone has to be a winner."

The exact reverse may be said. The fact that you've been around for a while does not entitle you to having a game-supported advantage over new players. If you are truly a better folder, your experience should keep you ahead of these new players.

[B_2]

I disagree that this is a social issue, and I don't think it was at all clear. "Can't run more puzzles…" sounded like a technical limitation.

Put the puzzles up, and people will play them, or not. Their choice. I'll still play every single one I can get to, even with one PC, and running at the most 2 clients.

But don't go messing with the leaderboards!! The four month window is fine, just get the scoring script to work every time.

Having to play for 4 months to get to their proper earned place on the leaderboards isn't a bad thing. It weeds out those who aren't in it for the long haul, and the "just lucky" ones who get a couple of good scores. Do people these days need immediate gratification to stay focused for more than a couple of days? If people stick it out for 4 months, they probably will have learned something, and might stay around. Maybe they will even learn to read the feedback and forums before posting endless duplicates.