Metaverse suggestion to increase long-term replayability

Agreeded. Stardock you better put in a multiplayer patch or you are going to lose costumers!

personally, I usually play without a costume

Weblaster........................ https://www.galciv2.com/Forums.aspx?ForumID=162&AID=98074

Acutally, I don't really care about the 90% that don't want it. Every customer deserves the best product!

Can we please stop derailing this thread? You can argue for multiplayer in that other thread. I'd like this thread to remain specific to the problem of Metaverse scoring. Thanks.

Personally, I like the devaluing of scores over time. That said, I wouldn't mind a lower level of devaluation. The people who play and submit to the metaverse go up. The ones that stop playing/submitting go down. If you don't like the way the metaverse is scored, don't submit scores.
On second thought, lets do away with the metaverse, I will get tired of looking at Technian or Weyrleader's arse for the next 3 years!

5% Time cap sounds like a good proposal

I have an idea for metaverse. (Although maybe a bit mean and will never be used anyway. (I wouldn't use it either.))
From the players perspective, they are always the best, because any scores higher than themselves will be removed from their screen.
Of course, it wouldn't be used and I wouldn't like it anyway.

Is 5% the best lowest/degradation percentage? And I like Wulfer's idea best.

The problem is not that scores devalue, it has to devalue or new players will almost never catch up. You certainly don't want to alienate new players. The problem is scores devaluing to ZERO after a relatively short, finite period of time. This creates the opposite problem and alienates the old players. 20 months from when you last play, it'll be as if you never ever touched the game as far as the Metaverse is concerned.

If you must have scores spiral downward forever, then using the formula Score at month n = score at month n-1 *0.95 would be better. What does that do? At Month 0, that 10000 score is 10000. At M1 it's now 9500. At M2, it's 9025. At m3, it's 8573.75. Notice how the rate of decrease slows down? After 20 months, you'd still have a score of 3405.6. After 36 months (3 years), it's at 1498.9.

Since that might be a little high, you could use 0.9 instead, so after the first month, the score drops to 9000, but after 20 months, it's at 1155, after three years, it's at 214. It's not a lot, but the important thing is that it's still there.

5% is what was used for Galciv 1. Just changing the percentage without changing the linear decay or adding a lower bound is merely fixing the symptom, not the actual problem.

Are you sure the devaluation is linear by absolute 5%? I always thought it were relative 5%, like Dracil suggested.
I wouldn't mind absolute 5% though, I think if someone didn't submit scores for 20 months (!!!), he shouldn't stay near the top of the list. I was in the top 25 once in GalCiv I, I'm no longer there and it's okay. I consider the Metaverse an up-to-date high score or performance table, not an eternal hall of fame.

I second Dracil's idea. I think the most frustrating thing was seeing it dissapear *completely* instead of just having it reduced (albeit greatly).

All of the devaluation suggestions I suggested would keep the player FAR FAR away from the top of the list. However, the difference between my suggestions and the status quo is that, it won't be as if the player never existed!

I'm pretty sure it is an absolute 5% because there was a pretty big debate on the GalCiv 1 forums about it. Unless they've changed it since then, eventually, you'll have a score of 0.

An idea for a solution is a "Hall of Fame" Have the metaverse work as it did with GC1, but on the side have a table of the top 100 (or 1000) game scores, total scores, scores for people with purple hair , any number of categories you wish. This way the metaverse is active for those still ACTIVELY playing and submitting, BUT those who obviously used considerable time in the past don't just vanish.

Chris.

Doesn't the devaluation increase replayability, by giving you incentive to keep playing? Or am I crazy here?

Look at the flip side of the equation. If scores were reset every day, would you bother, knowing that in a day, it'll be as if you never played? Now extend it to a month. Then extend it to 20 months.

Replayability also requires that the activity contains value (more specifically, it has to confer more value than other activities, or else you'd just go do that other activity). Why do some games include unlocks? To give the player value replaying the game getting those unlocks. What happens when they get them all? They stop playing because the value is gone (there is still some value from actually playing the game, but this rapidly decreases from reptition, and can even become negative when it becomes more work than fun)

Once again, the problem is *not* the devaluation. It is the devaluation to NOTHINGNESS. Devaluation increases replayability for those who want to stay at the top of the rankings. But devaluating it to zero wipes out long-term value.

Look at it this way, we have a player who plays for 10 months, and then stops playing after that. Let's say later on, a player of equal skill (gets around the same score every month as the first player), plays for 5 months. During those 5 months, he'll have the satisfaction of being higher in ranking than the older player because his scores are fresher. However, if he stops playing as well, many months later, the first player will have the satisfaction of having a higher ranking than the newer player because both their scores have devalued. See how BOTH players gain something?

If instead, all scores go to 0, then they'll both be ranked the same, and only the newer player gained satisfaction relative to the older player.

The problem is scores devaluing to ZERO after a relatively short, finite period of time

FYI, Scores do not devalue to Zero.  They cap at about 60% after a year.

It is not true that your scores devaluate to NOTHINGNESS. I know that there was a bug which made games dissapear. But Stardock fixed it. The games are not really lost they are just somewhere hidden in the database. When you have lost games, contact Stardock and they can make them appear again.

It is true that the score decreases with the time. But the maximum devaluation is 35% after 290 days. You can find all the details you need in a thread of Peace Phoenix

A quote from his thread:

The blocks are the following: block 0: 0-30 days. no aging block 1: 31-60 days. 5% aging block 2: 61-90 days. 10% aging block 3: 91-120 days. 15% aging block 4: 121-150 days. 20% aging block 5: 151-220 days. 25% aging block 6: 220-290 days. 30% aging block 7: 291 and more days. 35% aging

The sum of scores in each block is devided through the square root of the number of games submitted in this block. e.g. you submitted 4 games of 60k one month ago and 9 games this month. This would give you a total score of 0,95 * (4 * 60k)/2 = 114k for the last month and (9*60k)/3 = 180k for this month.

Hmm, ok in that case, nevermind me and this thread.