A two point condition for evolving is much more difficult than one point and a lot less fun. Fewer players are able to join and team work is diminished. Let's return to the one point rule.
We've now had time to test the two point rule on several puzzles. I'd like to hear other opinions but it is clear to me that one point is a sufficient limitation for players on teams to help with evolving. This was especially true with the 428 puzzle where points became so slow and far between that only a handful of evolvers made it to the board at all.
In my case, while I was still working on evolving my two points which was taking a day or more, a teammate posted a two point higher solution. I abandoned my evo in favor of the higher solution. The next day the same thing happened. Before I had reached the new evo score, a teammate had posted a new, higher solution. Again, I abandoned my attempt to try for the higher score. In the end, I never did evolve to a new high.
Teamwork is diminished because it is difficult for players to handoff solutions to each other.
If we want more players to enjoy the game and achieve higher, better solutions, I vote for returning to the one point evo limitation.
phi16
It sounds like the change did exactly what it was designed to do, make an evolved solution meaningful.
The point of evolving wasn't to let everyone on the team pack the leaderboards with everyone evolving the same solution.
What was the point of groups? Isn't it to let everyone on the team share top evo's and help evolve them? That's what the site is designed to do. The uploads are organized in numeric order; highest solutions appear first.
If, by meaningful, B_2, you mean "challenging", yes a two point limit is more challenging. Is that the intention here? Why not have three points or more as the hurdle to entry if we want it simply to be more 'challenging'?
The idea of having a group area to promote teamwork is a good one. In that way, we can get more hands working on the solutions. These puzzles take hours and hours. A group can more easily try different combinations and possibilities in the time allotted. That's why team solutions tend to be higher than soloist scores. Perhaps the one point rule was so that people simply didn't choose to be on the team competition without pitching in.
As it is now, only the ones who have the fast machines, a lot of time to spend in Fold.it and are good at folding are permitted to join the fun. Evidence 428 which only had 20 players total from all teams get over the minimum criteria for entry.
I've heard your arguments about team members joining on the bandwagon simply to gain points. What you're seeing are several people who talk to each other, give each other tips, help promote higher scores, team work and true competition as we evolve better scoring solutions. We've had champion performances come from most all of our team members at times. I've never heard a team member say that they want to evolve simply to improve their global standing. We don't always get top scores but, as a group, have been able to move a soloist solution much higher through a team effort. Unfortunately, we didn't get that with the last few puzzles. I believe that is because there are fewer people participating and a much higher hurdle to entry.
You will see dialog like "Joe, I tried to wiggle your solution with a Fuzer but it didn't produce." Isn't that what team efforts are all about; sharing information?
I'd rather see the site used as it was intended, for teamwork. Let's go back to the one point rule.
On many - perhaps most - puzzles, the 2 point evo is fine. IMHO, it is debatable as to whether it fosters any more creativity - a good team is always looking for alternatives for a better solution, and works with evolving any solutions that place highly for soloists.
However, on a puzzle where the point spread in the top 10 is only 10 points - any puzzle that tops out because of the type of puzzle it is - then a one point evo would have, in this case, led to more creativity rather than less. 425 & 428 are similar in this respect.
In the case of 428, the only way to evo at the top scores was to use only the top solo solution, rather than try a lower one. The proof of that is in the number of evolvers on the board - we normally have 35+ evolvers, but on 428, only about 20. Same for 425. This is a shame - I'm sure that there were good solutions left untouched on all teams, which were not fully explored because of the 2 point constraint.
Again, IMHO, there are two purposes to evolving - one is to help a soloist improve their score. The other is to compete for the highest ranking for the team.
@brick - The larger or better teams are always going to have more members on the leaderboards, especially in a tight contest as any team that functions well will try everything that every member can contribute to help their top soloists excel, and to get their collective score to the #1 slot.
phi16:
While I am personally in favor of the "two points to evolve" rule, I think you do raise a valid point regarding "hand-off" situations. Would it be okay if the game engine is tweaked is such a way that people can get evolution credit in the following scenario?
- Player A uploads a solution with a score of 9998.XXX
- Player B evolves it to 9999.XXX and uploads it
- Player C only needs to improve Player B's solution to 10000.000 (two points above A as opposed to two points above C)
==> The idea is that you still need two points, but the two points can be accumulated through different accounts within the same group.
There's no creativity involved when a team uploads an xxxx.999 solution and 20 people on the same team immediately evolve the same solution to xxxx+1, it's merely packing the scoreboard. AD invented this, and promoted it on their website, so the arguments against it ring sort of false.
Perhaps once a team member evolves xxxx to xxxx+1, no one on the team can get credit for xxxx+1, and the next member needs to gets xxxx+2 to get on the evolve board. At least that would require some minimum of creativity and diversity.
B_2,
"Perhaps once a team member evolves xxxx to xxxx+1, no one on the team can get credit for xxxx+1, and the next member needs to gets xxxx+2 to get on the evolve board. At least that would require some minimum of creativity and diversity."
Interesting idea.
Phi16
From my perspective is is ok now.
On some puzzle it is pretty hard to make that 2 full points, but this is better than evo by 0.001 pt.
When I get anything to evo i`m trying to do it even if I see new (higher scoring) one to download. When I evo that one I trying next if I see that I can do something more than only walk it more…
Maybe we can consider full 1 pt on some hard puzzles? 2 full always and 1 full in special occasions :)
@brick:
AD did NOT invent this - it's been going on since teams have been around.
The two people at AD who promoted this are gone - as is the person who wrote it up. One of the people most responsible for this behavior is on another team now - and in fact was on yours for a while, so by your logic should we assume that you were doing it, too?
20 people on our team do NOT jump on a xxx.999 solution and evolve it to xxx+1. In fact, since the main proponents have been gone - since February - I have not seen one evo posted at xxx.999. Since those people left - and that was one reason they did! - AD has been using evo as it should be used - please see my previous comment.
You seem to be stuck in a time warp on this…
I'm fine with the two points - design puzzles are always going to be difficult to evolve
