Load as Guide and Evolver System Proposals

[jflat06]

We've reviewed your feedback regarding the problems surrounding copying on design puzzles and the evolver system. We're considering the following changes:

1. Loading from guide would now make you an evolver. We think that once you've looked at someone's solution as a guide, it is not completely your own work, so you should be an evolver. We realize there was concern that this would fuel the issues with the evolver system, which is why we are proposing changes to that as well. We also realize that this does not completely address the design puzzle copying issue.

2. The evolver system would now be scored as follows:

There are 100 points available to players for evolving.

90 of these points come from your score relative to the maximum (as suggested by infjamc here http://fold.it/portal/node/990190#comment-12388 ). This allows people who are competitive in terms of game score to recieve points, even if their rank is not the highest.

However, we still feel that rank is an important motivator for players, so

10 points would come from your rank on the puzzle, relative to the number of teams you placed under. The formula would be (10 - (number of unique teams above you, not including your own) ).

For example, the 10 points would be awarded as follows for this example scoreboard.

Rank Name Group Points

1. A A 10 (10 - 0) No groups are above you
2. B A 10 (10 - 0) No groups are above you
3. C B 9 (10 - 1) Group A is above you
4. D A 9 (10 - 1) Group B is above you
5. E C 8 (10 - 2) Groups A and B are above you
6. F B 8 (10 - 2) Groups C and A are above you
7. G A 8 (10 - 2) Groups C and B are above you

This would cause less crowding of the scoreboard by players of the same team, while still ensuring that players who achieve the top spots on the scoreboard will get the most points.

[spmm]

Obviously this is my opinion.
Making a ''load as guide'' throw to the evolver competion means that you loose the opportunity to compare your solo solution to anothers and to learn by attempting to copy all or parts of it, and also to combine several parts of other's solutions.

Looking at someones solution as a guide is not the same as getting your own to score, but is invaluable for learning.

Usually the attempted copy is lower scoring, sometime it is higher, they are allways different, EXCEPT in the frozen design puzzles, because in those it is relatively easy to match the position and mutables, so easy you can script it.

In design puzzles yes throw to the evo, or just disable the guide option, but not for the rest, its throwing the baby out with the bath water. I learnt to fold by attempting to copy other players solutions, it is much, much harder than the QTTN beginner puzzles and for me at least, a strong reason for being in a group rather than banging about on my own.

Don't forget newcomers are competing against players with 3 years experience in a stable game environment, and learning all the new puzzle types and tool changes at the same time.

Even when my solo is leading the group I will still at some point in mid-game, compare other's solutions (if there are any)to mine using load to guide, just to look for other opportunities to improve my solution and see what the differences are. I can look at things in evo but without the overlay comparision it is much less informative.

I don't learn anything from the evo competition and evolve for the team score. I can copy from screen shots quite effectively though if I have to.

I appreciate that some players do not want to look at other solutions and prefer to be true soloists but, given the opportunity, I prefer to learn as much as I can from others and collaborate to get the best solution. I thought that was the point of the load as guide system? I'd like to be able to load all the top solutions as guides after the puzzle closes not just those from my team.

I don't understand how the points change makes any difference to the evo competition, (my maths abilities may be the problem), it is trivial (except in design puzzles) to add two points and for the next team member to add two points.

As each team gets a solo win in subsequent puzzles then their players usually win the evo competition for that puzzle.

I know that some people do really work at evoing but surely the reward should be for the distance or difference between the score of what you loaded to evo and what you end up with in conjunction with the overall score of the solution. I haven't thought yet about how that could be gamed.

I prefer Pletsch's solution.

[infjamc]

Just to make sure: Is it intended that the "team ranking" portion of evolver points can sometimes act as a penalty? (I'm asking because a literal interpretation of the formula suggests that players would lose points if there are at least 11 other teams ranked above them.) If so, can we assume that the system will manually correct to awarding a minimum of 1 point if the sum of the two score portions is either zero or negative?

[jflat06]

Right, I guess that needs clarification:

The 10 point portion can never be negative. It can, however, go to 0.

[B_2]

I think this might be something to try.

I firmly believe anything generated by anyone else that is loaded as a guide should bump you into an Evolver. I've never used one myself, and frankly it's too close to QTTN for me to even try it. I don't even see how people can use screen-shots of a solution to any effect.

Perhaps we can re-score some of the recent puzzles to see how the scores would change - just to look, not to change the scores already assigned.

[spmm]

Currently in the evolver competition you load the actual solution that you are evolving, so where does the guide come in?

Not being able to load as guide and effectively QTTN colleagues solutions endlessly for practice, just makes the learning process really mindless and slow because it is quite undirected (after the tutorials). Banging a stiff evo around for a few points is a very limited learning environment.

Just because you don't learn that way doesn't mean that other people should be stopped, an awful lot of people give up very quickly as it is. If you want a 'true' solo comp then have that but at least let people have a chance to get up to speed in some other way.

[B_2]

I suppose you ccould always load and play with some else's solution as a guide in offline mode, or after the puzzle is over, the "learning" part should still apply.

The Solo competition should be just that, a totally solo effort. It sounds like you want it to be an evolver competition without calling it that.

[spmm]

Yes have a pure solo competition, if that is what is required, absolutely no sharing between group members, no access to 'evo' or load as guide, if you are competing solo in that puzzle, if you access an evo or guide you are out of the solo comp for that puzzle and into the 'beginners' or something; disable in chat pictures, people can still share screen shots but you can't stop that.

Have another level 'beginners' or something with puzzles as they are now, load as guide for learning is not really evolving IMHO.
Offline didn't score when I tried it some time ago which makes it useless for learning, waiting until the end of the puzzle means you can try puzzles under the solo rules but probably would not have much time to QTTN between puzzles but that is ok.

But evo scoring for individuals just seems pointless as it is totally linked to the original soloists scores, so whichever team has the hot solo gets the evo points.

[infjamc]

Can we safely assume that loading a solution as a guide only switches the player to evolver mode when the solution being loaded belongs to someone else (i.e. people can still mix and match their solo solutions via the "load as guide" feature)?

[wudoo]

getting high score in solo will be still possible, so this doesnt change anything, only that you now limit best solos to those that can make or have that kind of scripts