Currently the highscores charts just add your name whenever you get a high enough score, but that causes situations like in The Yellow Shape and 360 Pong that someone starts taking over the top X rankings.
It takes away the motivation to try and get a good score when already someone's dominating half the chart with insane scores.
Shouldn't each user appear just once in the chart with his best score?
Though I do see what you mean, if your goal is to get the number 1 place, and Bob currently has it, what difference does it make whether or not he has the scores below it too? I think multiple higher scores kind of mean more than one high score. "I can get this high score all the time, it wasn't a fluke."
You're making me feel guilty now
It would be a shame if people stopped playing a good game, just because they know they won't make it to the top of the scoreboard (although I think it's inevitable after a while).
I certainly think players are rewarded far too much just for staying at the top - you get 80 credits for the setting a highscore, and then 30 more PER DAY therafter, which is too much.
Going back to your orignal point though, how about...
* A player is rewarded the most for setting a #1 highscore.
* The same player is then not rewarded any credits for setting a #2 score, but their score is still listed on the scoreboard.
* If one player has both the #1 and #2 scores, and another players gets a #3 score, they are rewarded the same number of points as if they'd got the #2 score (because they're the #2 player).
I think maybe you just have little emblems posted next to the top scoters denoting their place, that way people can see ranking by place easier than if, say, the first ten scores and the twelfth score are by one person and in 11th is someone else. Individual game rankings section I think I mean, a separate table with the top three and their scores, so it is more apparent that the different places are separate people.
Have to say i like it fine as it is - reminds me of the old Arcade games like SEGA Rally where you see the high-score table dominated by some guy who works in that bowling alley/video store/amusement arcade....
I'm happy to adjust scoring systems if we have enough people with a better idea
The reason I've allowed multiple scores from multiple users is really that if someone has both first, second, and third place.. should they not be rewarded for being able to get there? I know I'd feel a little cheated if I spent my time getting all the positios and gained nothing for it.
As for the daily scoring.. this may be lowered down (it isn't currently running, as I want to let the scoreboards fill up a little first of all), does anyone have any suggestions as to what they'd prefer the numbers to be (Please note, fractions are not possible)
It will be challenging to optimize the formula for credits calculation, but it's great that the Arcade even has this kind of system, and not just the game specific high scores. It brings a totally new element to it.
In my opinion, the credit system should prevent situations like where the top of the Arcade ranking gets totally unreachable for new players unless they first keep playing intensively for like a year. That might become the case if a lot of additional credits are granted per day for high score positions (for each position if user has like all top 10 scores? -need to be careful here). In the early days, it's relatively easy to get these cumulative credits, but as the number of players increases, competition gets tougher, it will become considerably harder to reach the top positions to get same amount of credits. Maybe there could be some time limit, like credits would be added only for the activity in the past X months to smooth things out, I dunno.
Btw, I would also love to see a list of "the most skilled players" calculated simply based on the average list position for personal best score of the player in all games played, requiring that the player has set a score at least in 1/3 of all games in the catalog. When the selection of games grows, this ratio should get smaller, to 25% (> 50 games in catalog), 20% (> 100), 15% (>200). This is a simple way to order the players based on skill only - not frequency or volume of playing, which is rewarded in the credits system. For example, I'm currently 141th (however, this 141 should be re-calculated to reflect a list position among UNIQUE players - not all submitted scores) in Miniature Shooter, 29th in Pesky Parachutists, 52nd in The Yellow Shape, 92nd, 41st,..., so that my average is around let's say 70. What is my ranking among all players with this result? Average of 70.0 might give me the 30th position in the skill ranking. You don't even need to mention the value itself - it's a relational ranking so only the ranking position (30) matters really. If this would be easy to implement, I think it would make a nice addition in the front page or in some statistics section.
I've actually concidered putting two score boards per game.. one for "All Time" and one for "This Month" or "This Week" - and award scores for both (higher for overall as that's harder to score on)
The front of the site would also show credit rankings for both all time and monthly/weekly
I remember back when I used to play Neopets all the time, and they had (and still have) monthly high scores for all of their flash games. At the end of each month, the scoreboards are reset in order to give newcomers a chance to jump in and grab some trophies for the top spots (which they awarded on a daily basis).
So yes, I definitely, definitely feel that the Arcade should have a monthly scoreboard in addition to an all-time list. It would reward players who are very active and involved in the Arcade and play all of the games every month, as opposed to someone who just nails an insanely high score one time, sits back, and still earns points even if they never visit the arcade again.
Also, do you think it would be possible to look at your personal high scores for each game in the future? I know that each person's profile displays their overall rank for a particular game, but maybe you could also display their score. It would have its advantages if you're trying to look for a Challenge opponent that's within your skill level.
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"I can get this high score all the time, it wasn't a fluke."
Apocalyptic Coders - 
It would reward players who are very active and involved in the Arcade and play all of the games every month, as opposed to someone who just nails an insanely high score one time, sits back, and still earns points even if they never visit the arcade again.
Edited by an Administrator
