Yeah, I have few suggestions for leaderboard improvement...Infact I have thought better leaderboard scoring system for a long time now, since I found out current is not good.
I hope they are technically doable, I guess JTC can ask Zwaxy. Hope this post doesn't become too long
If I use examples of games I play, that's only because I'm egosentric(+more easy for me to talk about games I know about). I know maybe 10-3-1 would be most easy, but it has it's problems too...even though it's better than current system.
Problems with current(or old) leaderboard:
Problem A: Current lb gives too many points for submissions not worthy for lb points;Courages to submit recordings that are not in top 5 of the game or even much lesser scores, inps that you are not proud of for just to leech lb points. Trackfld.zip even gives one lb-point for 29th place...because formula is 0,85^28 *29th place score/1st place score
Solution1: there should be a cutoff, after which lb points are not given...Give lb points for only top 3 or top 5.
Solution2:Current system is...1st place: 100%, 2nd place: 0,85*your score/first place score, 3rd place: 0,85*0,85*your score/first place score, 4th place: 0,85*0,85*0,85*yourscore/first place score=0,614125*your score/first place score
I think it should be: 1st:100%, 2nd 0,85*your score/first place score...3rd 0,7*your score/first place score...4th: 0,55*your score/first place score
That way you would not get points under 7th place. Also -15% should be higher, and could be different for 2nd and 3rd place etc.
SUGGESTION 1:
10-3-1 points....for 3 first places
OR
100-25-10-6-4 points...for 5 first places
SUGGESTION 2:
100x...30x...10x (x=your score/first place score)...for 3 first places
OR
100x...25x...10x...6x...4x ...for 5 first places with same system...
So for example 3rd place score would be 10 * 3rd place score/1st place score
So these both have cutoff point and therefore offer solution for not submitting 10th place scores for lb-points.
Suggestion 1 has
Problem B: It does not matter how high your score is, only position matters.
Suggestion 2 fixes this problem...but has...
Problem C: (your score/first place score)-thinking is flawed.
Games have different scoring systems. At trackfld.zip you get too easily very large percentage of first place score...which really discourages you to improve score, still only position matters. At Galaga.zip it's very hard to get even decent percentage compared to top score, so if you get 2nd place at Galaga.zip...your leaderboard points gain is very small...which discourages you to submit any score for Galaga, no point for fighting for 2nd place at one of most popular games, you get small lb-points anyway.
Nevertheless I think suggestion 2 is better.
Then I was thinking how about adding average to the equation. As: your overall average*suggestion1=average*old leaderboard score. That would force too much to keep good average though, and would lead to situations where its better to delete 3rd place than to keep it.
Partial solution...
SUGGESTION 3:...for top 3 positions
1st place: 10 points
2nd place: 3points*your overall average
3rd place: 1point*your overall average
OR (for not deleting so much bad scores)...for top 5 positions
1st place 100points
2nd place 30*overall average
3rd place 15*overall average
4th place 8*overall average
5th place 6*overall average
That should lead to increasing your overall average. Bad thing is that it propably would do it in expense of deleting your bad percentage scores. But why to delete them if youre proud. lb is not so important...haha.
Then my final suggestion, which is quite interesting...I hope it's doable technically.
One of very big problems I see with old or current leaderboard is
Problem D:Each first place gives equal leaderboard points. Competition at some games is huge, while other games there is no real competition. First places are more worthy for some much competed popular games than for those games people don't play. 2nd place at galaga.zip is much more worthy than first place in an odd game nobody plays.
Solution...give lb-points based on popularity of a game. Presumption: If a game has many submissions it's also popular and hard to get any top scores. I checked that presumption for most submitted games, seems to be the case.
SUGGESTION 4 !!!:
1st place 100 points*P
2nd place 30 points*P
3rd place 15 points*P
4th place 8 points*P
5th place 6 points*P P=popularity multiplier
P-multiplier:
20 most competed(most popular ie most submissions)games, P=10
50 most competed roms, P=9
100 most competed roms, P=8
200 most competed roms, P=7
400 most competed roms, P=6
800 most competed roms, P=5
1400 most competed roms, P=4
2000 most competed roms, P=3
other games P=2
Example:If you had 3rd place at 1941.zip(20 most competed)...you'd get lb points: 15points*P =150 lb-points. If you had 1st place at pc-tkfld(other games, only 1 submission)...you'd get 100*P=200 lb-points etc...
If this is techinically undoable, maybe it's possible to do it like: over 25 submissions P=10, over 20 submissions P=9 etc.
This suggestion(4) would then solve cutoff problem,only 5 first places get points. Mainly this would solve problem for less competed games getting equal points compared to more competed games. Also this system will give clones lesser points, if and when they are not so competed as parent rom.
Problems with this system. First I say this seems most exciting option in my opinion. I think it's just fair to give points also by a game popularity, or vise versa give less points for odd one submission clone...
Problems...I have submission for game pc_tkfld...That score is very good...why I get less points for that...Ok, maybe marpers will notice that you get 30 points anyway submitting 2nd place at the game, no matter how overwhelming my score is...When people start submitting for it, game rises at popularity rankings and gets more points. Current system nobody will submit for that title.
Danger is that people make teams to rise game popularity, but that is easily noticed. (and hey...they have sometime team names too, haha).
If you have many scores at unpopular games, you will lose a little, but top 100 games is only 100games and there are limited points for giving anyway.
Thank you if you could read all this. If you didn't, I'd be glad if you would take a quick peak at suggestions 2 and 4, which are both ok options for new leaderboard scoring. I hope we get lb more interesting somehow.
Tommi
P.S. Besides changing scoring, average and number of 1-3 places should be maintained. They're useful.