Automated scoreboards (split from CC:WI thread)

[CStarFlare]

You could still have threads for each game where people share their progress and discuss, regardless of whether or not the scoreboard is housed in the original post. I'm not sure if highscore.shmups does this, but it would be perfect if the system automatically posted the details of your new score to the relevant thread for you using the information you submitted to the scoreboard. Of course, the thread would still be open for general posting as well.

[M.Knight]

We do redirect the user who posted a new score on the appropriate thread with a template message containing the score data that he/she has to copy-paste. However, for technical reasons, we can't make it mandatory (yet?) and a user can technically input a new score in the database without posting it on the forums. That said, most if not all "native" shmup.com players who posted on those automatic leaderboards copy/pasted the score information on the message board, contributing to the discussion and human interaction. We trust ourselves to keep doing that.

Every leaderboard page on hiscores.shmup also has a link towards its specific thread.

[-S.L-]

I second that. Any score is automatically posted on the first page of the topic of the game, with the image that is automatically updated in real time, plus of course the score itself at the very last message of the topic, and free to the player to argument his effort or not, but usually it is followed by some other player commenting etc... it has a very human feel after all, as everybody concerned about the game is interacting with each other.

[chum]

this is the exact system i want on here man.

grouphug everyone!

just dont forget to have 1 category for each ship or shot-type!!!! seriously that feels so important to me haha

[Icarus]

I second that. Any score is automatically posted on the first page of the topic of the game, with the image that is automatically updated in real time, plus of course the score itself at the very last message of the topic, and free to the player to argument his effort or not, but usually it is followed by some other player commenting etc... it has a very human feel after all, as everybody concerned about the game is interacting with each other.

I like the system you guys have employed over there with the way the score boards are autogenerated images and each submission creates a forum post for that user, but the sub-categorisation for the games leaves a lot to be desired. For example, for Saidaioujou X360 Mode both Shot and Laser types were combined, although it is to an extent been fixed recently; and Crimzon Clover's score tables combine all shot types for each difficulty, despite the score potential differing for each ship.

I think the biggest challenges to creating a robust automated system will be:
1. developing a database schema that is flexible to cover all use cases, from difficulty/ship categorisation (eg SDOJ) to combined scores (eg rRootage example earlier)
2. coming up with a UI that allows for quick and painless creation of new game entries in the database, along with their specific taxonomies
3. coming up with a UI that allows players to quickly enter a new score, along with associated verification
4. finding an elegant system to flag and challenge scores eg. only displaying the "flag" button if a score enters the top 10 places/percent on a board, or if a user drops in with a really low post count and a really big score
5. linking the system to phpBB to get login data automatically (single sign-in system)
6. returning the score post information back to phpBB
7. keeping the plugin updated whenever the forum software updates and breaks something

I've had a few ideas already, but I'm quite lazy, lol. Might make some notes just in case, though. It's something I'd like to see on this forum, at least.

[endoKarb]

I still don't know that individual member topics would quite do it. I mean, how many people are gonna be like "Oh hey look! Lord Hypnos posted again, lets check out which game he was just playing"

Quite a bit I think. It's only natural to be curious about what other people on the forum are playing and how well they are doing.

And it wouldn't be just for reading either. People would be encouraged to post in other people's threads to ask question, congratulate players on their achievements and stuff like that.

The most important thing to me though, would be to get players of all level to log their progresses and their playing experience publicly.
You can learn so much by understaning the mentality of a player better than yourself and the approach he has when learning a new game or going for a new high score.

It can also be a huge help to the players themselves, an additional tool to keep oneself focused on their goal and without wander around and losing interest.

this is the exact system i want on here man.

grouphug everyone!

just dont forget to have 1 category for each ship or shot-type!!!! seriously that feels so important to me haha

/hug ^^

Another thing I'd like to see:
The scoreboard should highlight THE SHIT out of the highest scoring player for each category. It needs to be an effin firework display.

[Plasmo]

this is the exact system i want on here man.

grouphug everyone!

/hug ^^

Despair.

[-S.L-]

Hey Icarus, thanx for your feedback.

For this project we were two people to create it, I'm just the idea guy that came up with the concept, layout, friendly user and promoted it along the French community, the other member (Anzymus) is the tech guy, so he knows all about what you are talking about, while I don't

To be specific on the SDOJ or Crimzon Clover topic, the reason why we didn't separe ship / laser/shot type into separated section is fairly simple. We do not have thousands of players on the board, and so some ranking would be quiet empty compared to others, like for exemple Type Z is obviously the most popular ship over there, meanwhile the Type II section would have like 2 players only. So it's not really the fact that we don't want to have separate ranking, we just want to have a very prolific and alive topic.

And the best exemple to proove that we are wrong, is that you are yourself the best Type I player around and you could simply came up at first spot with your Type I anyway (in Original), way beyond all Type Z players (just, please don't )

Same goes for SDOJ on 360 mode. We "only" have 13 players now a day on this mode, separating shot/laser in two different section would look a little dull, thou we are very aware of the differences.

I guess we prefer to have very compact, busy and pro active rankings, than 50 different sub-categories where sometimes we could have only 1 or 2 players only on a specific mode with a specific ship. And it looks chaotic too (here on this forum, some thread are really unreadable because of that)

Now note that what you are asking for, is of course, completely possible to make, but we won't make it there for the reasons I explained.

[Icarus]

To be specific on the SDOJ or Crimzon Clover topic, the reason why we didn't separe ship / laser/shot type into separated section is fairly simple. We do not have thousands of players on the board, and so some ranking would be quiet empty compared to others, like for exemple Type Z is obviously the most popular ship over there, meanwhile the Type II section would have like 2 players only. So it's not really the fact that we don't want to have separate ranking, we just want to have a very prolific and alive topic.

While I understand your viewpoint, I think it would have been better to have correct categorisation from the very beginning. I would personally rather have one or two low submission tables and proper sorting of scores, than lumping all ships together for the sake of cleanliness. The problem with your viewpoint is that, in grouping Type Z with Type I and II (in the case of Crimzon Clover), it unfairly skews the board towards Type Z scores, and pushes the notion that Z is the only ship worth playing. In effect, you're forcing a ship type on new players who actually want to compete, rather than giving them the choice. This is further exacerbated with games where the scoring potential for each ship type varies massively.

I can't speak for anyone here, but personally, I prefer the idea of split categories, simply because I like to see the score potential of each category maxed someday. If I take the Battle Garegga thread as an example, it's exciting seeing what people are doing with the different ships - if that particular score thread wasn't categorised like it is currently, but compact like it's "top 10" listing at the top of the thread, then everyone would be forced to play as Gain to get on the board, simply because it has the highest score potential.

The only problem is that, over here, very few threads are active despite the large user base. Therefore, our problem is less to do with the fact that threads are user-maintained/categorised, and more the fact that only a microscopic percentage of our users here actually play and submit scores, or contribute to strategy discussion. That's a bit of a problem in a so-called community, in my opinion.

I guess we prefer to have very compact, busy and pro active rankings, than 50 different sub-categories where sometimes we could have only 1 or 2 players only on a specific mode with a specific ship. And it looks chaotic too (here on this forum, some thread are really unreadable because of that)

The thing is, you say that a thread is active because the listings are compact, but the thread could be more active if it had better categorisation. You never know.

[-S.L-]

True, that's why I encourage you guyz here at Shmups to have your very own system which is as simple, effective and straight forward like ours is, but the way you want it and it will therefor become and remain the shoot them up reference on the internet.

For SDOJ, people could say that Type D is over powerful (yes it is), but yet, nobody managed on our board to make a decent score with it in arcade mode and Type A remain the strongest over there.

I do understand what you said thou, don't get me wrong, i'm not stubborn

Our board is not supposed to be the worldwide reference, its main purpose is to facilitate the score posting and to have fun between us, that simple

[anzymus]

In hiscores.shmup.com we decided to create a generic template for all available games. When I want to add a new game in the site, I have to declare modes, difficulties and stages. Each rankings are combinations of modes and difficulties. I can understand that it could be weird for few games (Cave?) but it works most of the time.

But guess what, because all is just data, you can do anything you want! You could create custom rankings, care about all the details (shots, ships, bomb, autofire, ...), the most important is to store scores in a database and be able to organize it.

You already have a scoring software (restart syndrome), I'm sure you are able to improve this system. We have a proof of concept (auto sign-in, auto generated ranking pictures) and we're happy with it.

All is possible with some programming skills.

Don't be afraid about cheating, it's a minor problem and if something like this happens, you'll remove suspicious scores and you will find a solution, but don't think about it now.

[cools]

If it were me, I'd have one thread per score board and use the topic id as a FK... Super lazy but no messing around with categorising anything.