Overhaul of SM63 judging system

[Kimonio]

I honestly never saw a reason to deduct points based on lag at this point in the current era.

Prior, yeah, when we were ignorant on framerate and other ♥♥♥♥. With the new proposed system, I wouldn't mind also seeing levels in the past refactored.

[Supershroom]

According to Yuri's judging example, actually the new system CAN also change the scores a little compared to the old one. Yuri's example doesn't show changes mostly because his Other scoring is pretty balanced. And as for the names, I don't see any reason to not stick to Gameplay (we've changed it from Fun to Gameplay for a reason actually one year ago).

I've also had the idea to maybe switch from 12/8 to 10/10 at a contest which explicitely supports plot or music. But I stick to 12/8 as the usual distribution for the reasoning I already gave, and in fact it still ends up with plot and music being a little increased in value.

From experience, I've seen bonuses for story+music being scaled between -1 and +1. To keep the percentage of Graphics as 5/20, and to consider the influence of story+music towards the Fun factor (which always was a subconscious thing for Fun/Gameplay scores), I've lowered them a little to between -0.75 and +0.75.

As for giving judges more freedom, they should only have a choice between 12/8 and 10/10, if anything. Everything else is unnecessarily odd (e.g. 11/9) or too unbalanced.

A poll is set up now.

[MessengerOfDreams]

Okay that ♥♥♥♥ makes more sense. I'd say if it was 10/5/5 before make it 10/10 if you want to essentially combine graphics and details together. I'm curious to know if you think the changed system will make for an awkward transition with other scores from the past- if we will need to "re-score" past entrants to make everything uniform. That's a big concern of mine, being the LD Timekeeper and all.

[NanTheDark]

I don't think alternate music should be considered in the judgings at all. Plot, sure, but the music is something you just pick out of already existing songs. Sure, it might be a good choice, but ultimately you didn't make the theme.

Unless the designer themselves created a specific theme in order to include it in this level, it should not be considered.




















Also I support the idea of calling the second category A E S T H E T I C S

[Karyete]

Alternative music can really set the mood for a level though. It DOES have a small influence, so it seems fair to add or deduct a bit of score for it.

[Venexis]

Alternative music can really set the mood for a level though. It DOES have a small influence, so it seems fair to add or deduct a bit of score for it.

My beef with this is that Youtube is not a part of the designer. We have level designer contests, not "best scavenge suitable resources from all corners of the internet" contests. Plot/story driven levels can still make use of signs, and while not the most ideal medium for it, signs are at least an in-game mechanic.

So if, say, youtube is being ♥♥♥♥, that's essentially forced loss of points for something that is in no way implied or accessible through the game itself.

Although I am a bit biased by not being super into music and consequently struggling with it, it's definitely frustrating to be a backup judge and feel compelled to not let your music score (or lack thereof) selectively ♥♥♥♥ over entrants who did not choose an alternate soundtrack. An extra 0.5 points from one person isn't a massive difference maybe but LDCs have been decided over less in the past. I personally hate the practice of requiring alternate music for maximum points as both a judge and entrant.

EDIT: Also this.

I'm curious to know if you think the changed system will make for an awkward transition with other scores from the past- if we will need to "re-score" past entrants to make everything uniform. That's a big concern of mine, being the LD Timekeeper and all.

A lot of levels don't make use of the full 5 points available in Other- it's common that a level will max out in Gameplay or Graphics and then hit a 3.5 or so in Other. It's not unreasonable to say that 18 is the maximum obtainable score under the current system, then (10+5+3, for a perfect Gameplay and Graphics score, with everything special being covered previously in one of those two aspects). Therefore, it's also not unreasonable to assume that under this proposed system, 20s would become much more common (as they're still 12+8 or 10+10... a perfect Gameplay and Graphics score, with everything special being covered previously in one of those two aspects). I'm with MoD here; I think this is going to be a much bigger problem than it initially seems.

[l.m]

Imo alternate music should only be given bonus to if it's extremely good and fits perfectly with atmosphere, since they became pretty common in LDCs recently and there's no point into claiming something everyone uses as special and reserving a point in Other (which is going down, hee) just for it. I also like to deduct points if the music really ruins the mood, so it's not "hey congrats for pasting a link of a video on youtube here's an extra half point"

[MessengerOfDreams]

I feel like banning people from having opinions on how the alternate music affects the level is how we start the slippery slope of having QA testers and not judges, and employee designers and not artists. Glitches and block bosses are also not included in the designer- they're off-key manipulations of your resources. Are we to blockade praise for that as well? As it stands I have a series planned entirely reliant on the power good music has in a good level and you want to stop that area of artistry and in doing so control the judges so it isn't about the human experience. This is everything I'm fearing when we go down this path of "wins are entitled by criteria and not by the level itself" path. It's gonna suck the soul out of designing and I want no part of it.

[NanTheDark]

This is everything I'm fearing when we go down this path of "wins are entitled by criteria and not by the level itself" path.

The alt music is not part of the level itself. The blosses are, the glitches are, everything within the designer is. The alt music is not.

Granted, if you have planned a super arthouse series where it's all about the music, then I guess that we can judge THOSE ones with the music in mind. Kinda like in the Musical Moods LDC or whatever. But I don't feel I should award someone extra points for adding the epicest music evah to a regular platformer level.

So yeah your plot heavy musical moody arthouse visual novels are probably gonna be ok. No offense intended

Edit: If I made a super cool looking banner for my level, that wouldn't count towards the score, would it?

[Venexis]

I get what you're saying and artistic censorship isn't what I want either, there's just no easy way to say "sucks Volkove, Parellel Spires lost to Destinations by 0.04 points because you didn't include a youtube soundtrack". Pretty sure this exact example didn't happen but this is the kind of case where something tiny like that means the difference between a silver and a gold.

It's very much a gradient (especially as you start getting ever nearer to stuff like level4's programmable goomba with block bosses and things) but a very patient designer could coordinate all that by hand with nothing more than the designer, whereas an internet outage means nothing on youtube is accessible. A better example might be disabling items, although I feel like a text editing program is a standard part of every computer ever these days, heh.

I dunno what the solution would be, because it's a complex issue. Levels absolutely should be rewarded for going above and beyond, regardless of how they do it, and maybe a verbal good job alone doesn't cut that... it just shouldn't be at the expense of other levels, IMO.

EDIT: tfw Destinations and Parellel Spires were made in the 16th LDC, the theme of which was actually music. Who's got the bad examples now, haha. My bad.

Anyway the point still stands because all of the listings under "Smallest Gold-to-Silver Score Discrepancies" are things that could've completely switched first and second place if even a single judge gave an extra 0.5 to the second place, or 0.5 less to the first. I mean it's fine if it's consistent but as a backup I wouldn't want to be the guy responsible for that due to my own artistic ignorance.