(An attempt at) The top 40 TPA players from leaderboard scores

[relaxation]

... What I intend is for tied scores to average the points the tied players receive, not to average the ranks. This is necessary to award the same total points for every table. ...

The 18 players who have the max score on Frank are supposed to get this many points:
AVERAGE(for n=1 to 18, 100 * exp(-0.0465 * (n-1))) ~= 69.33

I had looked up ties and tie-breakers after MSF came out and I assumed you would average the rank, then award points based on that averaged rank. But I did look back and you said average the points the whole time.

I mentioned my method earlier to explain to others what you may have meant by your 'average the points' with excels avg.rank function which does the same thing as ((tied/2)+.5) does for me and I hadn't been corrected since.

How about LAH, what does 2 tied players get for points? I would guess each are awarded rank 1 points if your ranking is .5 off.
just so you're aware our maths match up when I reduced my rank from 9.5 to 9, that's why I say .5 rank off

 

[invitro]

How about LAH, what does 2 tied players get for points?

It's always the average of the points the players would get before averaging. It's very important to give the same total number of points for every table, and this is the only way to do it.

 

[relaxation]

I see through this example* that the problem gets worse the way I was doing it. If I want to keep a tied table the same point pool as an untied table I'll have to it differently.

*example ranked 1 to 115. darnit forgot to -1 in that calculation but it still shows the issue.

fixed it, you can ({}-1) an {}array if you don't wanna start at 0.
now I'm just pondering how to turn that into a rank value, don't want to change my score card format

 

[Dizzer2012]

62 out of 67 is incorrect (for top 10 scores). I count at least 64. I wonder what else is wrong. FUUTA that many points when he doesn't even own so much tables? Strange system u got. Not that it matters anymore but i think your list is bs. Only because of 2 tables. Starship Troopers and Who dunnit. Many points difference there. Tarek is place 194 on Starship Troopers and 300 on Theatre of Magic. All the rest is very close. So something is a little bit 'weird' about your system.

 

[relaxation]

62 out of 67 is incorrect (for top 10 scores). I count at least 64. I wonder what else is wrong.

The 67 is current, 62 was last month.

FUUTA that many points when he doesn't even own so much tables? Strange system u got. Not that it matters anymore but i think your list is bs. Only because of 2 tables. Starship Troopers and Who dunnit. Many points difference there. Tarek is place 194 on Starship Troopers and 300 on Theatre of Magic. All the rest is very close. So something is a little bit 'weird' about your system.

Points are based on half of available tables but excludes GoldTAF, SC:Assault on Vault, JD:Super Game, which is currently 71.. 71/2=35.5 (round up).. you're scored on your best 36 tables*. Seasons 1&2 had 41 tables, which FUUTA has and it appears S3 with jack*bot also.

I'm only being scored on 23 tables, short 13 tables but place higher than those with all 36 but low placement.

*wait a moment this brings up an interesting question, why do Tarek and Dizzer have 1t frankenstein listed in their table placements if they're only getting ~69 points for them versus another second place which would be an increase of ~30pts? or is that just for show?

 

[Dizzer2012]

The 67 is current, 62 was last month.

No it was not, it was allready 64 last month.,

you're scored on your best 36 tables

O i thought it was an allround list. My mistake.

Still don't get why Shortsight don't make one on the site. I allready gave them this idea without a respond, that it can also motivate people to buy all the tables because else u won't be able to get high for the allround. But ok...

 

[JPelter]

No it was not, it was allready 64 last month.,

You can just go back a page in the thread and see that it says 62 there, so the list is consistent at least.

 

[vikingerik]

*wait a moment this brings up an interesting question, why do Tarek and Dizzer have 1t frankenstein listed in their table placements if they're only getting ~69 points for them versus another second place which would be an increase of ~30pts? or is that just for show?

Because invitro includes the half of your tables that are highest ranked, not the half that are worth the most points. This was never an issue (rank and points were perfectly correlated) until the ties on Frankenstein and LAH decoupled them. It would make more sense to do the latter, if invitro's system is capable.

 

[relaxation]

I had help but here's an explanation on how to come up with an equivalent rank. If you wish to sort by rank then calculate the score [MENTION=446]invitro[/MENTION]

 

[krazysteve1958]

Amen to that. When "nudging" ability reaches a point where a player can turn a straight drain into a curve ball to a flipper it defies the physics of pinball itself. It's not pinball anymore or even a sport, it just becomes a joke. Put a player that scores well with this method on a real pinball machine and you'll probably find the machine later broken stuck on tilt.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

Amen to that. When "nudging" ability reaches a point where a player can turn a straight drain into a curve ball to a flipper it defies the physics of pinball itself. It's not pinball anymore or even a sport, it just becomes a joke. Put a player that scores well with this method on a real pinball machine and you'll probably find the machine later broken stuck on tilt.

As a long time real pinball player I agree. Most of the original ROMs aren't made for the easy TPA physics. I can remember the question back in the old days: Does the table count the 10 Billion digit? Meanwhile the same question for the same table in TPA is: Does it count 100 Billion? You're right that to much nudging destroy the classic beauty of a real pinball game...

 

[relaxation]

When "nudging" ability reaches a point where a player can turn a straight drain into a curve ball to a flipper it defies the physics of pinball itself. It's not pinball anymore or even a sport, it just becomes a joke. Put a player that scores well with this method on a real pinball machine and you'll probably find the machine later broken stuck on tilt.

As far as I am aware all pin-simulations don't do what real machines do, in more than a handful of ways, you want this thread to complain about TPA specificly. People here are playing a video game using all available tools to win or at least they should be if they want to be competitive.

 

[Tripredacus]

This looks like it would be fun. The update chart reminds me of having used matchplay.events in actual tournaments. Alas, I'm not good enough at this game to get in the top 100. I have only recently discovered this thread (thanks [MENTION=1051]Pinballwiz45b[/MENTION]) and I think I will only start out by going for table goals and/or top 500 on the monthly chart.

 

[Tann]

Hey, InVitro, I think something is wrong about how you merge the guys playing with the same ID on different platforms.

For example, [Sir Moovenstein] (PC) and [Sir_Moovenstein] (PSN).

It's ok that you take the best scores for both IDs (on some tables, he has a better score on PC, on other tables, he has a better score on PSN), and use them to calculate the Top 100 points.

But actually, once it's done, you delete the weakest score from the leaderboards. Why?

Example:

1	FUUTA	500578510	pc	Space Shuttle	2016-3-29
2	Dizzer2012	242261120	pc	Space Shuttle	2016-3-23
3	Sir Moovenstein	103528930	pc	Space Shuttle	2016-3-21
4	Sir_Moovenstein	76844330	psn	Space Shuttle	2014-11-8
5	vikingerik	72740520	pc	Space Shuttle	2014-11-8
6	Toolinit	63289170	ios	Space Shuttle	2015-7-27

You deleted [Sir_Moovenstein] (PSN), as vikingerik is #4 and Toolinit #5 for that table in your top (unlike in the master data).

It's not because Sir Moovenstein scored better on PC, that its previous highscore on PSN is no more relevant. He made a score on PSN that still beats the guys behind, so deleting this score is unfair, as it gives more points to the guys behind, without doing nothing.


EDIT: you also deleted from Cyclone:

2	Beamerboy	112281060	osx	Cyclone	2015-8-8

He has some good scores on others tables (Xenon, High Speed, Starship Troopers).

 

[relaxation]

3rd place doesn't have to compete with the old previous bests Dizzer/Tarek made to fight for first place, why should we if they happen to have more than one account?

 

[invitro]

*wait a moment this brings up an interesting question, why do Tarek and Dizzer have 1t frankenstein listed in their table placements if they're only getting ~69 points for them versus another second place which would be an increase of ~30pts? or is that just for show?

I haven't fixed this yet, yes it's a bug to list Frank for these two guys. The list of tables should be the best-scoring tables. I'll fix it for the next list .

 

[invitro]

3rd place doesn't have to compete with the old previous bests Dizzer/Tarek made to fight for first place, why should we if they happen to have more than one account?

Yes, this is correct. Another way to look at it: as with the tie-score method discussed recently, there must be the same number of points awarded for every table. The points for Moov's #4/76M/PSN score are being removed from his total; they have to go to someone else.

 

[invitro]

I am thinking about making a supplementary document that goes with my top 100 list. This document would have lots of detail -- all the details used in the calculation of the list. Reasons for doing this: more transparency (a nice political buzzword ), people can check for my bugs more easily, more questions can be answered without having to ask me. Reason for being a supplementary document rather than in list itself: the list would be way too big then... I don't mind big lists with tons of data, but I think this would be just too much.

Here are some things that would be in this supplementary document:
- Every top 100 score for every table, and any score below #100 that is used in my calculations.
- For every one of these scores, the points awarded, and (probably the main thing in this document) if no points were awarded, the reason why. Such as:
.... The player has a higher score for this table.
.... The player has >1 usernames that are being merged.
.... I/we have judged the player to be a hacker.
.... I/we have judged the score to be a hacked score or glitched score.
.... The score is not in the top half of scores for this player.
.... Etc., etc.?
- Also for each score: the date made (by my observations and as reported by Farsight?); the platform; any other worthwhile "field" for the score.
- All formulas used in my process.
- Perhaps some information on my process of calculation and data-gathering, and how & when I decide scores are hacks or glitches.
- Any bugs in my programs/methods I know of at the time (which will hopefully be none most or all of the time).
- Maybe all known hacked/glitched scores? Or only the ones in the top 100 for some table?

I don't know if the document should be a .txt file, or a .csv file, or perhaps something else. That's what I need to decide first. Then I need to make a "mockup" of it, a hard-coded version including a few tables / scores, then I'll write code to make it get programmatically generated. Then I need to find a place to put it, which will probably be github if that's appropriate because I want to learn to use git anyway.

I'm making this post as a request for comments, so, any comments/requests? .

 

[Tann]

I'm making this post as a request for comments, so, any comments/requests? .

That will be a huge task!

This one would make my day: list of all known hacked/glitched scores in the top 100 for all tables, with the reason why you delete them. Under 100, it's not much relevant as it makes almost no difference in granted points.

Oh... and good luck for git. I'm in since a few months, it's powerful but also very confusing. git reset --soft HEAD~

EDIT:

3rd place doesn't have to compete with the old previous bests Dizzer/Tarek made to fight for first place, why should we if they happen to have more than one account?

OK, I understand now.

 

[relaxation]

I'm making this post as a request for comments, so, any comments/requests? .

Comments:I like it

I didn't know where/how to host something like this either so no suggestions from me.

Requesting you chill out with the highscores so I can pass you.