In the latest Design Puzzles (because they are so rigid) if one person in a very large group (with active coders) gets to a top ten rank then that solution is very quickly copied using a script, then a script is written which resets the mutables and is then shared to the team. The position can then readily be copied by loading the solution as a guide. This is a fairly recent development.
I don't really have a big problem with that happening in the evolver competition but in the soloist competition it means that you are really just getting a large number of copies of the same solution in the top places; and other teams and soloists who have high scoring solutions are forced down the ranks just by the sheer weight of numbers of players in the large group who have used the fairly effortlessly copied solution.
I'm not saying that all players in the group follow that path but with 150 points up for grabs it is a temptation. Other teams also share and copy each other's solutions but the groups are much smaller so do not have such a distorting effect on the results.
Obviously it is up to each player to get the best score they can, but this is not even a remotely level playing field.
Perhaps three or four solutions per group and one each for those without groups would be a bit fairer?
spmm
Yes, this closes flu puzlle to qttn play at some point. But it is possible to get better score by other player/s than a creator of original solution.
I also have a big problem with that type of thing happening in Evolver play. Puzzle 445b is a perfect example.
The 2 point evolve requirement (which translates to anything > 1.0) was put into place to try to control that type of thing, but it is very obviously a total failure.
@spmm - I'm a little perplexed at this analysis…
In 425, there were 3 different teams in the top 5 - and one soloist. In 428, both foldeRNA & AD provided their AAs for global use (it turned out that position was everything on that one). In 439, in the top five were soloists #1, 4 & 5 - hardly surprising that they will occasionally show up in the top 5.
If you were put off by team AD dominating the top at the beginning of 448, that had nothing at all to do with sharing AA positions - we were trying a new technique to start a design puzzle, and each person started by using that with their own personal preferences. Twenty four hours later, the 9 of us in the top 21 atm have still not shared AAs.
I'm not sure which team or teams you have an issue with - but unfortunately & usually, when someone is complaining about large teams, AD is usually what they are complaining about. If this was about AD, please keep one other thing in mind - at the moment, we have only one player in top ten - at #10. The Contenders have 4 in the top ten - VC has 2 (and Madde has returned) - and foldeRNA has 2.
So please realize that our large team has been able to hold our #2 position by just that - being a large team. We work together without copying or banding to evos, but do share information. It can be any one of our members that end up having our top solution for any given puzzle - we do not depend on any one, two or three soloists. We are usually evoing more than one soloist solution at any given time.
@brick - your team is very small, so it's understandable that you have problems with evolving.
I suspect Evolver really just needs to go away. It's redundant with the Team scores, and really, what is it measuring? It just allows situations to develop where a single good solo allows a team to totally take over the evolver scoreboard with very minimal contribution.
The top evolver on any puzzle didn't do much except add a few points to someone elses work, while the guy in 20th place probably did more to improve a solution.
Let's just have each team work toward their top team score.
@ Brick - if that is the way that you & your team approach evolving, then I can see why you don't really get the dynamics of evolving, and the potential value to the devs.
The best example that I can give you is to look at the results for puzzle 420 - although Team AD's highest soloist was only in 11th place, the team as a whole came in second, due to the work of its many evolvers. That solution was worked on by a lot of people to improve the solution dramatically beyond the solo starting point. It would seem that the devs are looking for that in evolving (this is what they have said), and I would hope that all teams would approach evolving that way - we certainly do.
Any team & the members of that team can choose to participate in evolving or not. If a team wishes to become one of the top teams, then evolving takes a lot of hard work and/or must have a decent number of soloists in the top ten.
Perhaps your team needs to become proactive to become better at evolving and placing higher. Recruit more and better folders. If you don't want to do that, then you can choose not to evolve. And if your team chooses not to participate in evolving, then you will no longer need to notice it.
In the meantime, I imagine that the top folders in the Contenders, VC and foldeRNA will continue to do their excellent solo work, and that their teams will evolve most of those - and AD will continue to look at every solo with promise in the hopes that one or more of our members will be able to significantly improve one or more of our solos.
The end result is the same - the team gets a high score as a result of evolving. No need to make believe that every step along the way is so important that it needs to have points awarded. Why do you think that a 1 point evolve is better thatn someone who does a 50 or 100 pt evolve, but the resulting score is lower because of a lower starting point? Did that person do more work? No. They just happened to be on a team that works oh-so-hard to game the evolver scoreboard.
Maybe you're one of those soccer moms that feels every little kid on the filed is a winner, when in real life, there is only one winning team, and the others are losers. It's best to let them in on that early rather than lead them on to think every one is a winner all the time.
@ Brick - um, yes - "team gets a high score as the result of evolving". That is what evolving is - how long have you been playing?
I have never said that a one point evo is better than a 50 or a 100 point evo from a much lower score - I don't run this place & have nothing to do with the devs game rules - perhaps you need to have a heart to heart with the devs.
You seem to be in this just for the points - again, if that's what you want - better team placement - then go out & recruit more & better folders.
Or become a top ten folder yourself if it's a higher number you want next to your name.
rummages in soccer mom's handbag, finds lollipop, hands to Brick for consolation prize
:-)
Don't try to tell everyone you're just here for the science. There were a few of those in BOINC as well, but they all shut up real quick when I would challenge them to play without getting credit.
Of course we're in it for the score! Why do you think there is so much emphasis on it? Would you have a team if there were no scores, and everyone just folded "for the science"? Hardly.
Team score is only from best solution - team ranking.
Player evolver score is from his best evo score - player ranking.
Even if all of us made same very close solution and it will NOT be best one of players in team we will not get big credits as team. If our solution is best, why we (as players) should not get good evo score for that?
It is always team effort. Sometimes small pts bade by one user leads to huge jump made by other player. That how it works.
I see no point to change it, or talk about that is some kind ow evil or cheating. It is just how game is made.
Also if I contribute in team, why should I NOT use team knowedge to pump my solo score?
