On the topic of points...

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CaptainKeen
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Post by CaptainKeen »

I would say the problem is that there are too few people that play any particular keen mods. Those that do only a percentage would complete them and an even smaller percentage would play the mod again to get the highest score they can, or even try to get the maximum of points on the first play through. Then once they have done that they have yet to post their score or something like that and come in to contact with other players that have done the same. All that hasn't happened much yet (it appears). But then again how many mods have been out yet that have a maximum score?(im focussing on vorticon mods here) The only that comes to my mind would be pirate keen. Personally I havent even completed pirate keen yet, forget about trying to get the maximum score. Pirate keen is too big (32 levels?) and difficult. It would take a lot of efford to try to get a high score. (Also pirate keen doesn't seem to run smooth for some reason thats part of the reason I stopped playing it for now).

Also the mod creator could set target scores like

Average keener 100.000 points
Advanced keener 250.000 points
Ultimate keener 1.000.000 points

or something like that.
Keen mods have the contextual side effect of association with each other, especially for us oldsters, I would think, who have played the 50+ mods out there as they were released and have collected bajillions of 'empty' points across them.
I don't think this is a problem. I'm not sure what your worried about? that there might be someone playing a keen mod ignoring points and unaware of the new points system. You can write it on the forum in the help file or the player can notice that points farming is disabled. And finally it doesnt matter if there is someone somewhere playing the mod unaware of this new feature.
This "Keen context" is a 'feature' with positives and negatives, but point items suffer an immense drawback in it
I agree. essentially there is a tipping point in playing a keen mod/episode from before you can farm lives until you found a level where you can (think about paris in keen 2). And by extension you can often farm ammo too and the high score becomes meaningless too. After that both lives and ammo are unlimited, its only that a certain efford is required too load up again on them. This is a fun aspect but once you pass that point there isn't much to it. Unles ofcourse you make the ammo and points in the levels scarce but then players will quickly go game over without saving and loading. unles the game is really easy.
A lot of my mods have a maximum possible score, but I don't think that anyone pays enough attention to the high scores to do much with them. It's a great idea if there was more interest but I just don't see people taking it seriously in any of the mods we have out currently.
What mods have this besides pirate keen? I don't think there are that many.
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Ceilick
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Post by Ceilick »

CaptainKeen wrote:Also the mod creator could set target scores like

Average keener 100.000 points
Advanced keener 250.000 points
Ultimate keener 1.000.000 points
This is a fantastic idea. Taking this further, what if the game could taunt or compliment the player over exceptionally low or high scores?

Examples:

Code: Select all

"Mortimer mocks your meager candy collection" 

"Keen suffers a deabilitating sugar low" 

"Keen hasn't collected this much candy since Christmas '92"

"Sugar coma!"
These are fun little 'rewards' (even if they're negative!) that can make the player laugh and/or 'insult' them into collecting more points. Players may also just be interested in seeing what all the taunts and praises are. Perhaps images can be included with each taunt to further the experience.
CaptainKeen wrote:I don't think this is a problem. I'm not sure what your worried about? that there might be someone playing a keen mod ignoring points and unaware of the new points system.
This is not the problem I'm suggesting; the problem is that just knowing about it isn't enough to make some players care about it. Obviously we can never make all players care about the score, some people just don't play that way, but speaking for myself, and my impression of others in our community (although their are exceptions), making the system work isn't going to make us care and in fact we've been trained not to care by all the mods we've played.

This is why just patching the problem and telling the player "hey, it's fixed" isn't enough realistically to make it 'work'. We need ideas and positive reinforcement in addition to just a system that theoretically works. Your suggestion for target scores is a great start to this, as well as somehow encouraging players to compete with each other by posting scores.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

These are fun little 'rewards' (even if they're negative!) that can make the player laugh and/or 'insult' them into collecting more points. Players may also just be interested in seeing what all the taunts and praises are. Perhaps images can be included with each taunt to further the experience.
As noted something similar was planned for ROIB and is easy enough to implement; a message box appeared when a certain score was exceeded.

It may also be possible to have a CCA type 'point rating' at the end of each level.


*Thinks*

Also possible to 'count' each item obtained and check this against a 'point total' for the level. Hmmmnnnn....
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CommanderSpleen
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

levellass wrote:Also possible to 'count' each item obtained and check this against a 'point total' for the level. Hmmmnnnn....
It would be pretty cool to have this information available in the status window to compare against the current score while playing a level. That would be a more direct reminder that there is in fact an ultimate high score that can be achieved, and hopefully motivate players to keep exploring the level until they find everything, or at least to replay it another time with that goal in mind.

At the very least, a notice on the high score table indicating the maximum global score could have a simlar impact.

The taunts/compliments would be cool, but would there be room on the high score table? Or would it be displayed at the game over screen? Something as simple as rating a player's performance using characters from the game, such as yorp/garg/vorticon, in icon form could suit as a more compact presentation on the high scores screen.
CaptainKeen wrote:What mods have this besides pirate keen? I don't think there are that many.
Mondochrome has a maximum score, and I'm pretty sure KeenRush's latest few mods do, using the unlimited lives/in-level scoring patch. I never specified anywhere in the mod that this is the case, though, expecting at the time that the player would automatically realise this. Nor did I bother to actually calculate what the ultimate score actually is.
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Ceilick
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Post by Ceilick »

Great ideas with the status window, Spleen. Being able to directly refer and compare one's score is a great way to bring it to the player's attention.
The taunts/compliments would be cool, but would there be room on the high score table? Or would it be displayed at the game over screen?
Either or both. Given that it seems some of us will opt for infinite lives, any kind of gameover sequence or message is otherwise not utilized and perfect for this situation.

But this makes me wonder; is the Highscores table even valuable? If, generally speaking, only a single person is going to be playing a given copy of the game, might we just remove the whole "enter your name and see the rankings" concept in favor of a one time rating screen upon gameover/endgame/win? Perhaps the game can keep track of only the best score, rather than a table.

I'm not sure I'm particularly fond of this concept, since I do see some value in comparing one's own scores, but it seems like there is a lot of 'outside the box' modification that can be done there.
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CommanderSpleen
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

Ceilick wrote:But this makes me wonder; is the Highscores table even valuable? If, generally speaking, only a single person is going to be playing a given copy of the game, might we just remove the whole "enter your name and see the rankings" concept in favor of a one time rating screen upon gameover/endgame/win? Perhaps the game can keep track of only the best score, rather than a table.
A good point. The concept of a high score table was pertinent in the era when a computer was more often than not shared between many people and Keen was played by a broader audience. But it is less likely that a modern Keen player will happen to share a computer with anyone else who would even play our mods let alone seriously compete for the high score.

One-off ratings worked well in Doom and Duke3D, where the player is evaluated at the end of each level, but there wasn't much fanfare about the overall results, with more emphasis on a cinematic finale, and the high scores were dropped entirely. This was also a precursor to the modern Achievements system, which I would hate to see employed in a Keen mod. Still, it does indicate that there may be another way of approaching the situation.

Keeping the table itself is important, but shrinking it back to three entries would provide more space for extra ratings and relevant captions, along with a section indicating the maximum possible score.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

If, generally speaking, only a single person is going to be playing a given copy of the game
Was there ever a time when more than one person was playing a copy of Keen? Certainly it's a family game, but I can't really ever see that sort of competition in a house. I've always assumed it was to list the creators and give you a goal to aim for against your own personal space. I think it's an arcade holdover.

One-off ratings worked well in Doom and Duke3D, where the player is evaluated at the end of each level, but there wasn't much fanfare about the overall results, with more emphasis on a cinematic finale...
Look at two Epic games, Jazz Jackrabbit and JOTJ; the second had a rudimentary HS table, names had three letters max and it was displayed by the main menu. No real fanfare. The second lacked HS entirely and instead evaluated your performance (Enemies vs items got) at the end of each level with a (pointless) score bonus for getting a 'perfect'
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Ceilick
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Post by Ceilick »

CommanderSpleen wrote:...modern Achievements system, which I would hate to see employed in a Keen mod.
Agreed, if we see the modern achievements system the same: multiple arbitrary, pointless, and possibly not even fun goals independently awarded from the rest of the game, sometimes procedurally so.

While various ranks may be thought of as achivements, I think as long as these are based on the pre-existing elements of Keen scores (point items and one or two other elements significant to the game/story: ship parts/cities/council members/etc) then we won't have to worry about the atmospheric bleedout caused by modern achievements.
Levellass wrote:Was there ever a time when more than one person was playing a copy of Keen? Certainly it's a family game, but I can't really ever see that sort of competition in a house...I think it's an arcade holdover.
Probably not at our age anymore :P And today's youngsters don't seem to be the type to gather at a friends house to play some Commander Keen, sadly. The bygone period of the arcade highscores can really only be sustained with online rankings, which don't seem feasible for us without out-of-game forum interfacing.
Levellass wrote:I've always assumed it was to list the creators and give you a goal to aim for against your own personal space.
I can't say that I've ever seen it this way; default highscores have always appeared to me as 'artificial' scores (they've certainly been so in my mods). It's never occurred to me that they were legitimate scores to beat.
Commander Spleen wrote:Keeping the table itself is important, but shrinking it back to three entries would provide more space for extra ratings and relevant captions, along with a section indicating the maximum possible score.
The highscores table, if retained, seems like it would best function as a history of rankings rather than a list of best rankings. Perhaps the most recent game/endgame always appearing at the top of however many listed.

What are the static elements of our 'highscore' table:
1. A title. Perhaps "Highscores" or "The Keenest" don't quite describe what's being displayed anymore.
2. Indication of max point value or what the best possible game is.
3. A number of slots (possibly a number equal to the number of ranks) which keep a record of the most recent or best playthroughs.

What are the elements of a rank displayed in a slot:
1. Is there any relevance to player's getting to type their name anymore?
2. Points attained (displayed flat number; displaying it as a fraction to max score in each entry seems messy)
3. Something/s relavent to the particular game's objective progress (ship parts/cities saved/council members/IQ points collected, maybe something as mundane as levels completed)
4. A picture and/or description relevant to the player's rank for the given play through; a trophy.

More? Less? I don't include ammo or lives count here since these, it seems to me (unless a mod places particular influence on them; think Episode Smile and its lack of an ammo item), would just be secondary point scores that at most act as uninteresting modifiers to point items collected.
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Post by levellass »

Keen 4 did a nice job of the elders saved, Keen 1 of parts and Keen 2 of cities saved. A similar mechanic could be easily added to the HS table.
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CommanderSpleen
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

levellass wrote:Keen 4 did a nice job of the elders saved, Keen 1 of parts and Keen 2 of cities saved.
All of these examples would be redundant in a completed-game-only list. It would be like showing the grappling hook and rocket access card in Keen 6. Or all the gems collected along the way.
Ceilick wrote:I don't include ammo or lives count here since these, it seems to me (unless a mod places particular influence on them; think Episode Smile and its lack of an ammo item), would just be secondary point scores
So it needs to be something that isn't a collectible item, nor part of the overall game objective. In which case we're actually starting to move toward an arbitrary achievements metagame, and must question whether anything more than just the score as an indication of total game completion is really required.

It does seem more Keenish to have something secondary, though. Even if it is effectively just another point counter. If it is a rare item and the means for accessing each one are interesting and challenging enough, it could stand alone from the main score.
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Ceilick
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Post by Ceilick »

All of these examples would be redundant in a completed-game-only list.
This is a good point; if we expect all games ranked to be completed games, not games that were merely ended by player choice or had game over (which basically can't happen with infinite lives).
So it needs to be something that isn't a collectible item, nor part of the overall game objective.
This isn't what I said, and deliberately included a secondary factor on the list:
3. Something/s relevant to the particular game's objective progress (ship parts/cities saved/council members/IQ points collected, maybe something as mundane as levels completed)
However, your first statement makes it clear that these kind of things are going to end up being redundant in a list that will most likely only include completed games.
It does seem more Keenish to have something secondary, though. Even if it is effectively just another point counter. If it is a rare item and the means for accessing each one are interesting and challenging enough, it could stand alone from the main score.
I'd be hesitant to include something that is strictly represented numerically, which is why I wouldn't consider ammo and lives. More numbers IS just a secondary score and, while maybe used as a modifier for 'ultimate score', this doesn't seem to me to have the same appeal as content like ship parts and council members (even if these are, ultimately, also just numbers).

Between this and the need for something that is optional to actually completing the game, we have moved into arbitrary territory, even the "rare items" accessed by unique interesting challenges.

Secondary score items, then, will have to be relatively unique to each mod and tied into relevance through the story, even if they are not required by the story unless there are multiple ways to complete the game based these factors.

Also unless we have a way to bring back premature game overs.
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