Re: Yet another completion - death by status line
- From: dogscoff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 25 Jul 2005 04:14:38 -0700
Squeamizh wrote:
> [Good players] let the high score list do the talking because
> it's never ambiguous about definitions and it never lies.
Can't really speak as a "good player" but from what I've read here I'd
have to disagree with this. The nethack scoring system is woefully
inadequate (on its own, at least) as a measure of a player's success.
That's not a criticism by the way, it's just an inevitable result of
the game's complexity. Just look at the "we need a new scoring system"
threads that pop up every year after the nethack tournament.
The problem is that nethack is so complex and the possible strategies
so diverse that attempting to rate them numerically according to some
kind of algorythm is nigh-impossible, and the whole excercise becomes
more or less arbitrary. A computer might be able to time the runners in
the Olympic 100 metres race, but you wouldn't expect it to score the
ice-dancing event, would you? They have panels of judges with
scorecards for that.
For example, ascending the game after killing every monster in the
dungeon is a fiendishly diffficult thing to do, and would therefore
deserve a higher rating than a "normal" ascension. However, ascending
without killing *any* monsters is also fiendishly difficult- probably
even more so, and so should also qualify for a high score. With this in
mind, how should you score kills? Does the extinctionist really deserve
to be higher on the list than the pacifist, just because the scoring
system chooses to reward killing rather than avoiding?
And that's just one aspect of the scoring system. Look at all the other
conducts, and all the other clever non-conduct tricks that ought to be
rewarded but aren't. The factors to take into consideration are almost
too numerous to list, and certainly too much for any computer program
to balance. That's why ppl post their ascensions (and their YAADs and
"completions") so that the game can be evaluated by human beings- the
only machines capable of judging it fairly.
Which suggests a rather interesting idea: A human-rated high score
list. Players can submit their best YAAPs (including old ones, if they
like) to a panel of expert players. Due to limits on the panel's time
and the overwhelming number of YAAPs submitted, I imagine only the
worthiest ascensions would be scored. The judges- or at least a
representative portion of them- read the YAAPs and arrive at a score
based on whatever criteria they feel are fairest, but I imagine they
would take into account things like playing style, conducts, turns
taken, patches used, real luck (ie /ow on Dlvl 1), game score, level of
spoiledness and no doubt lots of other things besides. The whole
exercise may even devolve into a quasi-comical and utterly arbitrary
farce, more like the internet Oracle than an Olympic ice-dance scoring
panel. (Or vice versa, depending on your opinion of Olympic judges...)
There would be debates, disputes and discarded dummies over
assessments, I have no doubt, and a whole lot of fun, nasty and
interesting politics, but there would also be some laughs, perhaps some
new tricks learnmed from deeper analysis of games, and the assessments
would probably make highly instructive reading material for those
nethackers still developping their skills.
Just my 0.02 local currency.
.
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