Load as Guide and Evolver System Proposals

[wudoo]

also you limit soloist that may be in some local minimum to reset or something, instead to load a little evolved evo to put you out so you can fold more…

[itskimo]

????? 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. ?????

Why, what is the motivation? I would think that teams would bunch up as much as possible having everyone evo the same high score to maximize their team scores. This would only make team conga lines worse, penalizing small teams even more.

[Rav3n_pl]

For TEAM score counts only ONE TOP solution from entire team.
So even small team can be in top of team board, but if players from team/s "bunch together" they taking possibility to earn evo points by players from another teams (not team points!).

[Mark-]

Just because the loudest voices say there is a problem, it doesn't make it so.

If you don't like how many people are above you on evolver then find a better solution and do the same to them. If you or your team can't find a better solution, too bad, live with it. True soloists, like Marie, are not in teams so couldn't care less about evolver.

The latest design puzzles are a slightly different matter. From my point of view I would happily receive zero points for these real-world problems. I would much rather have my and my team's names on a scientific paper announcing a breakthrough in fighting some disease than any number of points. The Foldit team know exactly what has been done by who on any given puzzle and would accord the right people the credit for any given solution.

Zero credits, zero problem.

Can we get back to fixing the real game-play problems now. Some people are getting really fed up with all these petty arguments.

[infjamc]

"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"

Okay, this is a real concern, and I do agree that this would make the game even more unfair. Right now, the only solution I see would be disabling the functions that could be used for copying solutions in soloist mode, such as get_segment_distance (structure.GetDistance in V2) and possibly others– but then the cure would be worse than the disease.

So, right now I see several possible alternatives for limiting the far-reaching effects of the "loading as a guide switches you to evolver mode" rule (or at least making it fairer):

1. Apply this rule only in design puzzles;
2. Similar to #1, but limit to "design puzzles where all backbone segments are locked" (to allow for loading as a guide to see rebuilt loops and/or inserted residues);
3. Apply this rule only after the "load as guide" function was triggered N times in a puzzle (but this could still be abused, as people would just leave the client open to keep the count at one)
4. Apply this rule only if you have more than X global points;
5. Identify the methods used for copying a solution, then apply this rule for calling certain LUA functions that are often used in these methods but rarely used for other purposes.

[spmm]

I have no desire to change load as guide functionality, (Auntdeen's suggestion) and I don't care personally about the evo scores, except as they relate to the group score, just pointing out how they work in reality.
Others have come up with some ideas for changing the evo scoring and some other dramatic changes which I don't personally support, which I why I have responded, not being entirely clear about how decisions get made.
All hands sounds like fun and I feel Pletsch's ideas may be worth exploring, others may have other ideas.
If throwing around some ideas and responding to others suggestions is upsetting to people, then please accept my apologies. It wasn't intended as a personal attack.
The forum would perhaps be a better venue for this type of discussion.

[infjamc]

1. Believe me, I am actually quite surprised that the Foldit developers are considering my idea of calculating the evolver score based on the game score relative to the maximum. Ideally, I would prefer to see a vote being put up on this issue rather than seeing a method being chosen arbitrarily. (And by voting, I mean having everyone rate each of the methods being considered on a scale of 0-10 rather than simple plurality vote.)

2. The same can be said of the proposal to switch a player to evolver mode once a guide is loaded. Again, I think the intention of the rule is to prevent abuse (i.e. simply reverse-engineering a teammate's solution in soloist mode, which is arguably very easy to do for certain types of puzzles), but I do agree that there's the potential of the cure being worse than the disease (e.g. making it harder for newer players to lean). Mind you, given the concerns already raised regarding this new rule, I actually prefer Pletsch's solution as given in http://fold.it/portal/node/990190?page=1#comment-12540 now…

[beta_helix]

I am bringing up Pletsch's suggestion tomorrow at our weekly Foldit meeting.

His post raises this point:
"If people are copying from solo scores to increase their own solo score than either figure out a way to stop it, or figure out a way to level the playing field."

That is exactly what we are trying to do.
Nobody wants us wasting too much time on this (when you can see the feedback tracker overflowing with more urgent requests) but we did want to figure out a way to stop a clear loophole in the game.

Again, these 2 changes are only Proposals… we haven't taken any further steps towards implementing these in any way. We only want to make changes to Foldit that improve the game, not make it worse or harder for new players.

[krulon]

Hmmm… the "clear loophole" resulted in the highest score……due to tremendous team effort and a lot of invested time. …sorry!

[B_2]

Yes, and it's called "Evolving".