RCT Discussion / The points system

maybe just add parkmaker pages and still keep the points system?

There have got to be cool features to reward those who do the coolest stuff and the Hall Of Fame isn't enough in my opinion.

I'd definitely love the option of a constant poll regarding the current top 20 parkmakers on the site. That'd be sweet.

Also there could be similar polls on the homepage for more specific things all the time.




Another thing I would like to see again would be the old spotlight/runner up/super runner up/design pages.
I always thought it was very cool to just have a chronological list with all the logos of the accolades of each kind and you could then just click on one and take a look. I LOVED those pages!

After H2h I know I'm shooting for a shitload of more designs to get into the top 10.

And you think it's not broken?

Some might call my ranking a fluke, but as someone who has spent the better part of the last year in and around the top 5 in active ranking, I'd attest that it isn't at all exciting. There's no thread for discussion when it's updated, no congratulatory post for whoever snags the #1 spot. Those of you defending the point system are the first people I've ever heard acknowledge the rankings.
The system is terrific in theory; I remember being totally excited for it along with everyone else when it was announced two years ago. As of now, however, it is not doing what I think it intended to do for the site. As Kumba mentioned, the point system was a ton of work and I am by no means suggesting we eliminate it as I have heard is currently in the works.
There are a lot of good ideas floating around this thread that involve maintaining the point system that I really think we should take into consideration as we move forward.
Perhaps I was just younger and more excitable at the time, but I longed to become a Parkmaker for years. I was disappointed when they removed the title as I thought it was something I'd never get to achieve. Its reemergence would certainly pique my interest in this game/site. I don't know if any of these suggestions will be taken seriously but I sure hope they will.

-disneylhand

Current rankings mean nothing, as far as I'm concerned. I've been #1 for around a year now without having a release since SFSF at the end of May last year.

I do agree that the loss of a "parkmaker" title was unfortunate. There's only so much prestige a number can give you, and the HoF rankings deal as much with quantity as they do with quality; I mean, hell, legends like Phatage and Gee are behind me only because they've released less work than I have, and that I cranked out mediocre designs years ago. It'd be nice to have something special again for those of us who've gotten a spotlight or done something out-of-the-ordinary like win a NE contest.

Everyone knows what people did I really don't see why anyone needs some dumb title to make them feel special.

Admittedly, I haven't played the game in years, so I don't care what you think of what I do with the game. But I still think that people who only play for milestones will stop once they've reached it, and that's exactly what happened for years with people who became parkmakers. And there really is no point, as there aren't really going to be any more perks for being one at this point. Anyone can vote on parks. Everyone has a dedicated page for their parks (Click on your name in your post if you don't believe me). In fact, the new forum design is 20 times better than any of the old parkmaker pages ever were simply because they get updated. If the standard is that you have to have a spotlight to make it, then isn't having a spotlight enough of a pat on the back?

Anyone can vote on parks.

I thought it was a select panel of judges.

Parkmaker spots were only given to those who won Spotlight or the non-parkmakers who placed highest in contests.

occassionaly, people without spotlights won, right? i distinctly remember junja boy getting a spot and he never got a spotlight.

@disneylhand: I too felt disappointed when i found out i could never be a parkmaker, but i disagree that the rank is mostly forgotten. i constantly look at people's ranks to remind me of how much work they've done and although the current rankings is a little flawed, I think that the hall of fame is a good indicator of skill and activity.
People (like me) can complain about the points because we barely release anything, and feel that we are scored "unfairly", but in the end the quantity of work does relate to how remembered and revered a parkmaker is. Natelox is great because he did so much, not only because of his perfect aesthetics. What I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't drop points because some people haven't released much.

The new homepage/site Gee was working to showcase good and current work was much better than the current points system.Highlighting simply what was current and/or good.
We discussed the topic of points indepth before somewhere,maybe backstage? or here in the forums last year.

Either way simpler,easier maintenance is what id suggest. But i don't really care as i'm neither a behind the scenes worker or someone who submits anything regularly.

^It was indeed a good way to showcase good and current work.

For now though, the points system and the release system does a much better job than anything before. EVERY release gets a place on the front page when it is released, even if it is a tiny mention, before anything that wasn't an acolade had to be released in the forums by the creator themselves.

The point system and the release system that is in place atm, is a great addition, it may not be perfect, but it was a step in the right direction and hopefully sometime in the future (albeit far off) it will step even further in the right direction.

But I still think that people who only play for milestones will stop once they've reached it, and that's exactly what happened for years with people who became parkmakers.

And this is exactly what happened when I achieved that goal. I was more than flattered to be given the title but after it I really did feel like there was no more level I could reach to better myself. The current system is perfect for that.

Maybe we just all need to make a bigger deal of things. I mean the system is perfect in my eyes but we take that for granted and view work but a lot of us never bother to type up a review to say how much we enjoyed it. This system is what we make of it and it is built to display work, rank them fairly and give us something to constantly work to. If we can't do our part by honouring releases with a bit more critique and hype then the system will seem flat to a lot of us because we're taking it for granted. I mean look at H2h, we've all been wanting this for so long and some of the releases are getting under 20 votes. Admittedly this is when a LL pops up but that shouldn't stop us from feedback and discussing what we like.

How about topics easily set up by whoever for releases that featured that month? What was hot and what was not? More discussion of the game and how people are impressing you. We all just need to get creative and pull our finger out a bit more.

^Good post JK.

I think the points system works very well. I personally don't look at the current rankings, because i'm not currently building any small, quick parks to get points, and so it doesn't affect me.

But the Hall of Fame is a really nice addition, something that pretty objectively game me a placing along with every other parkmaker to release work here, and gave me a ladder to aspire to. It's quite interesting to look behind me, and see that realistically only JK, CP6 and RCTNW are going to overtake me any time soon, and very interesting that I could overtake Posix with a single release. However, to get to JKay and RRP, i'm going to need a good design and a good spotlight. In a way, this does affect the parks that I build. I always wanted to have one more spotlight anyway, but if I get it and i'm still not past RRP, i'll probably make a design to climb further. That's assuming he hasn't released anything else!

Maybe some minor adjustments would help, but honestly i'm really happy with the system. Parkmaker didn't mean anything anyway.

^ That's exactly the mindset I'm in and that's coming from two former park makers. I'm aiming for the top 5 which will take a few years but the point system gives everyone their own milestone to try and reach.

Thanks for this guys. It's so interesting to learn about people's views. I think it becomes clear that only people who are high in the HoF AND are currently active are those motivated by the points, whereas others don't care. This makes good sense to me.

My opinion is similar to disneylhand's post. Nobody ever seems to talk about their current rank, which was what I had hoped for: the competition and resulting motivation to play. But as soon as H2H6 comes along suddenly it's possible for half of the site to play which otherwise they would never have done. Obviously the rankings can't keep up with that.

This topic reminded me of how geewhzz and I talked about a marketing talk one of us remembered that you should never take something away from people or they'll go crazy on you, even if it couldn't be more obvious how useless it is. I feel this is what happesn here somewhat. The objection to change is always great because new things mean a challenge to learn how to seek value from them, which previously had already been done. Thus if we ever find a developer again who can upgrade the site, it will be my great concern to make the design as intuitive and easy to understand as possible.

Back to the points. What you guys have been describing is the status factor they serve. The signaling that you are better than somebody else, the stuff you can find in every of K0NG's posts. This ambition is exactly what I was trying to milk via the points, but they don't do it well enough. I think their pace is part of the problem. They're just too slow and static to be of prominent interest. Even if I've put them directly under people's names in the forums. I also agree on the problem how they reward quantity more than quality, no matter how much we exaggerate the multipliers. Quality is really the only factor that matters. Roomie can create as many parks as he wants (sorry mate, you're just so amazingly productive that you serve as a good example here), I will still like that one Schuessler park better than all of Roomie's parks together because from my perspective it's of higher quality.

The panel score system is something linked to the points, but actually just a way to determine park quality, not per se a mechanism to reward status. Thus it's a different thing that needs to be distinguished and looked at differently. I don't think we should get rid of it as it works wonderfully and everyone seems interested in the scores. What we do need is a new mechanism how to derive status from the scores, our quality data. Most of what has been suggested circulates around the idea that certain scores should just be assigned to fixed status profiles. For example: "Win a certain combination of accolades and you receive a special parks page making it clear you are more important than other members". This is basically the message you got from NE2's parkmaker pages and what still seems longed for by many. I'm fine with bringing that back under the condition that we do something against the "parkmaker's curse" which MA so nicely recapped. I think the idea people suggested a year or so ago to have tiered 3-level parkmaker ranks could work, but still, after 3 steps the ladder ends. Maybe 5 steps are good. After that people are probably through with RCT anyway.

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MCI, you're most welcome to promote our releases on YouTube. You don't have to ask if you're allowed to do that. It's your own private project, and it's not like we have any means to stop you either. It just didn't cross my mind you had motivation to promote NE. I thought what you were interested in were your own projects and accompanied communities.

The question on panel feedback is a different issue that has nothing to do with the rankings, but nontheless I agree with you that elaborate advice would be nice and an important piece in the upbringing of new players. If you find a way to motivate people to give feedback then it'll happen. Put out your ideas on this, I'm curious. Geewhzz and I had considered to add a comment box inside the floating window where panelists vote. I think we didn't do that because it would have created too much work to handle those comments as essentially they would later need to be auto-posted in the release topic of the park. Currently, repyling to a mediocre screen in Dump-Place isn't really worth it for most. I personally only reply to those players who have at least one decent release under their name as I take this as a signal they are serious enough about their game.

I think maybe an aggregate of the percentage scores of people's past three (solo?) releases (for example) under their name in the forums would be another way of determining a player's current quality.

Obviously points determine quantity, and to a certain degree quality, if you break each release down, but not many people do this.

For example, JK would have Dreamport (93.08%), Djinn (86.54%) and Ilmenite (78.85%), which would work out at 86.16%. I think this is probably one of the highest on the site, if not the highest.

You could even make a list of quality this way. Average percentage over last three (five?) releases. This would discourage people from just making crappy designs to amass points.

You could even make a list of quality this way. Average percentage over last three (five?) releases. This would discourage people from just making crappy designs to amass points.

This could also back fire on the communitee as a whole. Yes we want releases but you could have folks going the other way and not release anything because one bad score can kill an average. As much as some of these releases are not all that great, a relase is still a release and shows the communitee is still alive.

Regarding the comment box for the accolade panelists, posix, you could make it optional. Thus, if a park doesn't seem worth commenting on (if it's obviously not up to a high enough standard for an accolade, etc) then the person rating it doesn't have to comment.

RCTNW, that's a fantastic point which is necessary considering it counters a fantastic idea by Turtle.

Yes I see you're point, RCTNW, but It would only be your most recent 3-5 releases, so there is always room for improvement. I don't know, maybe not everyone will see it like that.

If your last three releases are all fairly high (let's say 80% average) and you're not sure you can maintain/improve on that level of quality, then you would have an incentive to stop building. Granted, if it was an average of all your releases that might help a little bit, but I still agree with RCTNW that it could backfire.

Well,

can't understand why you care so much about averages, who cares about them?
I think playing should be fun and not bitching about averages...

Good point RCTNW, hadn't thought of that. But then i've never been one to rebuild work because it wasn't good enough.. Figure once is enough!