One idea that was suggested in chat is to get rid of the <15 <150 puzzles completely and have a separate set of beginner competitions using expired puzzles and top solutions as guides, like the idea that DisposableHeart mentioned in the other thread.
I personally think that it would be very valuable to keep some sort of permanent metric, like experience points, that is not converted into a ranking list but used to gain levels, like in an MMO or a site like Kongregate. We have talked about this idea, and it's very likely that we will implement something like this in the near future.
Well, I figured what the problem is. The news item referred by our Admin did not mention the scores before Puzzle 107 are ignored. He only mentioned it in his response to me:
"Again, I cannot help but repeat what I've said before. The global scores are indeed calculated on a 4-month basis, except that we have cut off all scores prior to puzzle 107."
This little piece of information puts everything in place.
Soon the best players will have enough points that beginners will not perturb the top positions, even though they can play the same puzzle 3 times.
A side note: this moving sum calculation for the 4 months period could have been done on an ongoing basis, not by resetting the whole scoring system.
Another side note: I feel some impatience from our Admin. Excuse me if my impressions deceived me.
I guess one option that might make everyone happy would be to only count the best score if people make attempts at more than one of 'same' puzzle.
I think the idea of the <15, <150 puzzles is not really for newcomers to get 300 points per puzzle and launch themselves up to the top of the leaderboard, but more to give them a puzzle they have a chance of competing on without having to beat the experienced players straight away? So just counting the best scoring of the three attempts wouldn't hinder that goal.
Also with the new rolling system, probably some day we'll have experienced players who've been inactive for a while coming back and being able to enter the <15, <150 puzzles. With three active puzzles they can do three times, they could potentially score 800+ over those puzzles.
Sorry, I see I have just reproduced one of DH's original suggestions.
I'll get my coat :duh:
To clear the record before I move this to the feedback tracker: I had posted this information before too, quite clearly. Following DH's example, I will bold out the section:
"Due to the slight changes to scoring that were posted with the latest update, as well as the fixing of the bug that allowed confusion of soloist and evolver scores, we will be phasing out old scores up to the point the update was released. This will take place over a period of about a month, so the transition will be relatively smooth."
We have 4mo scoring window, closing as done.
