Restart Syndrome - High Score Boards

[CStarFlare]

For some reason, modifying a score for Triggerheart Exelica (PS2 - Arcade) will clear the comment for the score. It said something about getting three arguments when expecting two (or vice-versa) on line 252 of modify.php, so maybe it's caused by the extra option compared to most games. Also, if one person has two records with the same score, it will show both on the ranking board.

By the way, it's not a problem (right now), but as a warning, really good scores for Alternative Sphere can barely be entered into the site, as it only allows 21 digits for score. Thankfully, the highest scores for any mode are around 180,000,000,000,000,000,000, so I don't see that causing a problem any time soon, but I didn't realize before now that it's far worse than Giga Wing Generations.
Also, A and B stages for Alternative Sphere are notated like 2-B, as opposed to 2B, if it's not inconvienient to fix.

I've fixed the modify bug, everything should update properly now. Also fixed the A/B stages on Alternative Sphere.

I looked at AS's site and it seemed to have a high score page that implied that 21 digits would be the highest things would go - is there a possibility that it could go higher?

(I also noticed the identical score issue when I was testing the site but have kept it at the bottom of my to-do list since I don't think it should come up. Still, I do intend to fix at some point. )

Also, I think Toaplan is completed now. They were a nightmare, so please enter scores for their games.

[Skykid]

Couple things:

- I believe Dodonpachi DOJ BL XMode is missing 1 score digit?

- Could you add an entry for Dariusburst AC (arcade ver. rather than PSP)

Thanks!

[CStarFlare]

Sorry for the delay, both of those have been done now.

[NTSC-J]

Is there a way to make it so that you can still get the star for getting an ALL even though you post an ALL score that's less than your previously posted score? For example, Gus could post his Futari Ultra ALL and get credit for the clear even though it wasn't a new high score.

[CStarFlare]

This has been in place for a while; previously if you had entered a clear score then a higher non-clear later it would give you a grey star next to your new high score. I recently updated to set the star in cases where you add a lower clear score after the high.

See my Harmful Park score for an example:

http://www.restartsyndrome.com/board.ph ... ode=Normal

[Chaos Phoenixma]

My 1-6 Score for Salamander 2 gave me a clear star.

I'm sure that's not supposed to be the case.

[CStarFlare]

Definitely not, thanks for pointing it out. Fixed.

[CStarFlare]

Wanted to bump to let people now they can now upload picture and replay files to the site. The STGT drama and resulting discussion made me consider why I don't upload pictures more often, and the honest answer is that I don't want to bother with going out of my way to upload. I also hope that people will use Restart Syndrome to host their replay files instead of Mediafire because our uploads don't expire. (I don't expect to run out of space or bandwidth)

You can still link to another site if you want to host another way, but you can't do both - if you enter an outside link and upload, the upload wins.

If anyone runs into issues with file uploading, let me know.

[renardqueenston]

Slap Fight MD special is missing area 1-73 specifically. aside from that, this is radical!

[CStarFlare]

Fixed. Silly Toaplan.

[Despatche]

ok time for score spam and giant comments

1. since there's a mame selection for arcade games, should there be some similar for other platforms e.g. kega fusion for genesis, epsxe for playstation? maybe mame and these others should just be changed to "emulator"... oh god what about normal mame versus shmupmame? comments are so helpful but no one's going to use them for that besides me. fuck video games

2. should there be a 5-2 for espgaluda?

3. why have shields for gradius iii only?

4. i think raiden pce should have its own board

[renardqueenston]

i want to say that emulators for most consoles (let's say pre-32-bit) tend to be really speed accurate at this point in time, and it might not be necessary, but a general "emulator" tag would be a good addition as specifics beyond that probably aren't particularly needed.

[ptoing]

You could add Guxt, and Kenta Cho stuff. Nice site.
I got a few more 1CCs but I never write stuff down. So I guess from now on this will be handy

[Kollision]

Finally started adding stuff.
But what's the difference between Replay link and Video link?

[AntiFritz]

I assume replay is a demo or input file.

[Kollision]

thanks
so video link is for the YT type video, replay link is for an INP file or something

suggestion:
adding a few TITLE attributes to the labels would be good for quick reference.

[ptoing]

It would also be nice to eventually have nicer game search. Sorting by Dev and so on.

[CStarFlare]

1. since there's a mame selection for arcade games, should there be some similar for other platforms e.g. kega fusion for genesis, epsxe for playstation? maybe mame and these others should just be changed to "emulator"... oh god what about normal mame versus shmupmame? comments are so helpful but no one's going to use them for that besides me. fuck video games

I considered these and decided to go with MAME but not other emulators for the reasons renard mentioned, and to preserve my sanity. I've noticed that usually (not always) boards here are run the same way - MAME is called out, but console emulators generally are not. I suppose I could add a generic "emulated" checkbox if it's a concern.

2. should there be a 5-2 for espgaluda?

Someone else mentioned this, and I thought I fixed it - guess not. I originally left it off because the in-game table didn't have it, but the port's breakdowns do and everyone seems to like it. Done now, though (also did Esprade in the process) Also went ahead and updated existing entries to 5-1 or 5-2, based on the comments people left.

3. why have shields for gradius iii only?

Not sure what you mean - I know II has them as well. Did I miss shield types on some of the Gradius games?

4. i think raiden pce should have its own board

After looking into the port, I agree. Done.

You could add Guxt, and Kenta Cho stuff. Nice site.

Will start digging up info on Guxt and Kenta Cho stuff tonight.

Search is something I've been thinking of implementing for a while now - with almost 200 games in the system navigation is becoming a bit of a pain, and I'd like to have tags that cover alternate titles (Raiden Trad vs. Raiden Densetsu, Dodonpachi Ressurrection vs. Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu, etc). Just have to find some time to plan it out and implement.

[Despatche]

Is the site down right now?

I considered these and decided to go with MAME but not other emulators for the reasons renard mentioned, and to preserve my sanity. I've noticed that usually (not always) boards here are run the same way - MAME is called out, but console emulators generally are not. I suppose I could add a generic "emulated" checkbox if it's a concern.

I don't know why people do that, but I don't think it's because they believe these emulators are very accurate (even when they are). It's more that most people are usually using real hardware with console ports and games, since it's a lot easier to acquire and use than a PCB. I'm probably one of a small number who actually do use emulators all the time, honestly.

But yeah, just some "Emulator" selection should solve it, maybe put a notice somewhere that people should mention some emulator/hardware details in the comments or something. This will probably make every comment uselessly large like mine, so maybe there needs to be some way to hide comments.

Not sure what you mean - I know II has them as well. Did I miss shield types on some of the Gradius games?

I can't get to the site right now, but Gradius II and Gradius Gaiden didn't, and the latter has unique/useful picks like Guard and Limit.

[CStarFlare]

Site's up for me. Are you still having issues?

I've never assumed people are using consoles, at least for things that are easily emulateable (32-bit and prior, though I've heard a lot of stuff runs really well in PS2 emulation as well). Most of my "retro" shmupping is done via emulators. Then again, I've been a big fan of S/NES emulation for almost a decade.

Gradius II has shield type built into the ship selection for the Arcade version ("Type A Force Field" etc), and as far as I can tell the Famicom version only has one shield. Is there a way to select something else?

I see what you mean on Gaiden, I'll have to add a field for shield type there. Fortunately, it looks like all the entries have been kind enough to specify their shield.

[tinotormed]

I was about to upload some scores for Star Soldier (PSP), but can you fix the place value notation? The score in the PSP version can reach up to the millions place.

[CStarFlare]

I'm not sure what you mean - the max length for Star Soldier is already set at 7 digits.

Gradius Gaiden if fixed.

[tinotormed]

I'm not sure what you mean - the max length for Star Soldier is already set at 7 digits.

Gradius Gaiden if fixed.

There are actually differences between these two games. The NES version only has 7 digits while Star Soldier PS2 and PSP is set up to 8 digits.

[CStarFlare]

Ah, I misunderstood. Fixed.

[tinotormed]

Ah, I misunderstood. Fixed.

Ktnx. Archiving my scores now.

[Meseki]

Does the server actually support .png's for picture uploading? I tried to upload a (converted) .png for a picture for a Crimson Clover (Unlimited) record and it ignored the file, as though I didn't choose to upload any file. However, when I modified the record to include the .bmp that Crimson Clover normally outputs, it accepted it just fine.

[CStarFlare]

It does, my recent Lotus Land Story scores have PNGs that I uploaded via the form. Maybe try it again and let me know if you continue to experience issues - maybe find some way to send the file you're trying to upload and I can figure out why it's bombing.

In the meantime, I'll have to make a mental note to find add some sort of alert so the user knows an upload has failed.

[CStarFlare]

CSF, would it be possible to add an overall ranking for players with the most clears and/or a board where people get weighted scores depending on how high they rank on the boards (where having a 1st place score on a board with 10 players is worth more than a 1st place score on a board with only 2 players)? The old victoly boards had this feature and I thought it was a fun distraction.

Want to bump to come back to this, because I'm very close to making this happen. What would the best method of assigning scores to a position on a scoreboard? I originally was going to do 1st place = 3 points, 2nd = 2, 3rd = 1, and nothing below, but as you said I also feel like being #1 on a board like Battle Garegga should be weighted more than a #1 on the PCE version of Gradius II. On the other hand, I think it could encourage activity on some less active boards.

I've been toying with the idea of (max - (rank on board+1)), with the max score being the number of entries on the board and the lowest being 1. The downside to this is that popular boards could be overweighted - I believe our largest board has 21 entries right now and can grow much higher (the shmups forum Deathsmiles board has over 120 people on it!).

Would love some input on this. I don't know if there's an absolute right way to do it, so would like to know what the users would like best.

[trap15]

Doing something logarithmic might work. Play around with some different algorithms other than exact 1:1 mappings.

[Meseki]

Doing something logarithmic might work. Play around with some different algorithms other than exact 1:1 mappings.

Something like log((max - rank) + 1) possibly multiplied by % of top/average score could probably work. You may not want base 10 log though, and the multiplier could make things get messy with games with huge clear bonuses like Mushi Original or exponential scoring like any Dodonpachi, especially if it were based on the average.