New scoring system

[takkaria]

The current scoring system is:

player->max_exp + (100 * player->max_depth))

Which is, I think, a bad scoring metric, and has been on the cards for revision for quite a long time (ticket #68 is almost a decade old, gulp!). I think it should reward:

• faster gameplay to a lower depth
• 'difficulty' options such as ironman

So I think score should be something closer to:

XP * (depth * 100 / standard turns) * D

where D is one, plus 0.1 for connected stairs off, 0.2 for each of force descent and no recall, and 0.3 for no artifacts.

Thoughts? I know scoring isn't a big deal in Angband really, but it would be nice to make it something that represented skill a little better.

[Derakon]

I know some players complain about everything being biased towards speedrunning. Maybe we should consider just tracking a bunch of metrics and showing them to the player at the end, so they can pick whichever metric they want to improve. I don't think you can really sum up "how skillfully did I play" in a single number anyway.

So one of the options at the gravestone would be "view stats", which would show game turns, max depth, clock time, total experience, uniques killed, etc., and for each of those you could view a leaderboard comparing this character to your previous characters.

[Estie]

The only people who use the score at all are the competion players, no ?

So use a number that those people find valuable. Maybe ask them ?

[AnonymousHero]

I know some players complain about everything being biased towards speedrunning. Maybe we should consider just tracking a bunch of metrics and showing them to the player at the end, so they can pick whichever metric they want to improve. I don't think you can really sum up "how skillfully did I play" in a single number anyway.

+1. Bonus points for tracking some of the metrics that the competitions have been judged on.

[Derakon]

The only people who use the score at all are the competion players, no ?

So use a number that those people find valuable. Maybe ask them ?

We shouldn't necessarily assume that all Angband players are members of the oook community; ideally whatever replaces the current score should be valuable to all players.

And the competition players look at game turns, not score. As far as I'm aware, score isn't used for anything at the moment beyond ranking each player's personal Hall of Fame.

[Estie]

Exactly, they look at turn counts because score is not usefull.

I am not assuming that oook is the only Angband community, but I am assuming that only competing players need a scoring system. And since the oook community has a competitive playing group, why not make a score for them they find usefull.

[bio_hazard]

I'd think it would be better not to have score depend on birth options, since it would be nearly impossible to titrate them against each other. If people care about it, have options to filter the ladder for those options so you are comparing apples to apples. I'm not a competitive player though, just my 2 cents.

[Derakon]

Exactly, they look at turn counts because score is not usefull.

I am not assuming that oook is the only Angband community, but I am assuming that only competing players need a scoring system. And since the oook community has a competitive playing group, why not make a score for them they find usefull.

Yeah, it's a fair point that targeting the score to some known audience will guarantee that at least someone finds it useful.

I still stand by having a collection of various metrics rather than a single scalar value to measure your character's accomplishments. As a newbie, you want your score to reflect how "far" you got, so max dlvl/clvl are interesting metrics. As a player with a few wins, you might be interested in how many uniques you killed or how many artifacts you found. As a competition player of course you're interested in how quickly you won. Et cetera.

[t4nk]

I still stand by having a collection of various metrics rather than a single scalar value to measure your character's accomplishments.

"Collection of metrics" and "scoring formula" seem completely orthogonal to me. Why should it be one instead of the other? Wait, there is actually a reason to do only one of those...

As a newbie, you want your score to reflect how "far" you got, so max dlvl/clvl are interesting metrics. As a player with a few wins, you might be interested in how many uniques you killed or how many artifacts you found. As a competition player of course you're interested in how quickly you won. Et cetera.

Yeah, but it's a lot more work that just improving the scoring formula. Who's going to do it? If "no one", then that's the reason to change the score calculations instead, because this is something that actually can get done.
I don't know what the formula should be though, but it should encourage speedrunning, because grinding is already an obvious enough strategy.

I know some players complain about everything being biased towards speedrunning.

Some players always complain about something I think a lot more people (mostly non players) complain about Angband promoting grinding.

[AnonymousHero]

"Collection of metrics" and "scoring formula" seem completely orthogonal to me. Why should it be one instead of the other? Wait, there is actually a reason to do only one of those...

Right and that's "metrics". Any type of single-number "score" in Angband is completely meaningless.

[t4nk]

Right and that's "metrics". Any type of single-number "score" in Angband is completely meaningless.

It's not meaningless if it measures something. Maybe it doesn't measure the things that you're interested in, but it doesn't mean it's meaningless.

[Nick]

I think a lot more people (mostly non players) complain about Angband promoting grinding.

A lot of people complain about Angband promoting grinding because they played it 15 years ago and that was their impression then and they want a reason to ignore it in favour of other games (or, you know, life).

I don't know what to think about scores at this point, but I am increasingly wary of people who say "The thing wrong with Angband is ..." where the ... is usually approximately "It isn't Brogue" (or other roguelike du jour).

[debo]

A lot of people complain about Angband promoting grinding because they played it 15 years ago and that was their impression then and they want a reason to ignore it in favour of other games (or, you know, life).

I don't know what to think about scores at this point, but I am increasingly wary of people who say "The thing wrong with Angband is ..." where the ... is usually approximately "It isn't Brogue" (or other roguelike du jour).

Get off my lawn!

[t4nk]

A lot of people complain about Angband promoting grinding because they played it 15 years ago and that was their impression then and they want a reason to ignore it in favour of other games (or, you know, life).

Hm, I actually think the main reason is the lack of information about monsters... but that's a different topic.

I don't know what to think about scores at this point, but I am increasingly wary of people who say "The thing wrong with Angband is ..." where the ... is usually approximately "It isn't Brogue" (or other roguelike du jour).

Brogue is the proof that graphics is the most important thing in a game (as if the world needed any proof of that).

[Nick]

Brogue is the proof that graphics is the most important thing in a game (as if the world needed any proof of that).

Lucky you're working on them then