Organization How would you like our levels to be categorized?

Done

 

And here is the post: http://mekoramaforum.com/threads/vote-for-method-of-sorting-levels.111/

 

I'm kinda late to the discussion but I'd like to add that some of us might love designing levels that can be deceptively categorized -- e.g. A dodger that appears to be a puzzle. In that case the designer might want to keep its focus "intentionally blurred" or simply appear to have multiple focuses for the players to figure it out themselves. Trying to categorize them in the first place could actually ruin the experience of such kind of levels.

From my POV I'd just say that both difficulty levels and types can be subjective and it'd be an endless discussion if we were to debate on this and go really, really philosophical regarding how to put things into "categories". I'd also like to point out that, while both are more or less opinion-based, a difficulty scale is nonetheless readily quantifiable by averaging the user ratings (and the sorting process is fully automated). It surely isn't a perfectly objective measurement, but the idea here isn't to be perfectly objective in the first place -- what we do need is a way to gather information regarding how the community (as a whole) thinks about the difficulty of a certain level.

I'm also thinking of a "zero" rating for members who may consider a level as "impossible", such that levels with an average rating below 1 can be grouped together for people who especially want to "do the impossible". This way the difficulty sorting would be exclusive (without overlapping) while also dynamic in that the average rating of a level would change over time as people might find it easier once it's hinted as solvable, or harder as newer members might see the level differently compared to the more experienced veterans.

Tags can then be manually applied by appointed mods to indicate the type(s) of each level, and when necessary, multiple tags will be used in tandem to denote those of mixed types, or those "deceptive" levels to avoid revealing their true nature right away.

I'd also love to see an auto-sorting system (alongside difficulty-based sorting) based on the size of the QR code on each card, that can place the cards into categories of different sizes (Large / Medium / Small), but I'm not sure if that would be technically feasible.

 

Interesting perspectives… Thanks for posting!

Regarding the size of the QR codes, what would be the purpose of sorting by their size? I have seen difficult levels with small codes, and very easy levels with large codes, so I'm not sure how size relates to anything useful. Enlighten me, please?

Re-"deception". The categorization process has nothing to do with destroying anyone's "experience". First of all, the tags, are used for searching, so if someone is searching for a particular type of level, and yours comes up under that particular type, it may still be a deceptive level to the player… Because they're going to try to figure out why it is listed as one thing, but named as something else. This is, of course, assuming that they're paying attention to the names on the cards as clues to the level. So, placing it in its "correct" category, can actually be more deceptive in the long run.

Here is an unusual example that I recently encountered. It is a minimal level called simply "balance". It has absolutely nothing to do with balancing, in the classic sense of the word, and everything to do with deception. (It sure caught ME with my pants down!) but that's the first thing you see when you open the level, a ball balancing on a tall yellow bot's head . Oddly, (as I assume some people may be thinking) I would classify that as an Agility, Balance level, because that IS its focus, even though classic balancing has nothing to do with winning the flag... Unless you think of balance in a whole ' other way. Lol

Re: 0-rating. I like that! In some ways, that would make my one-star ratings less painful to the creator, because then they can think, "well, maybe this is harder than I thought...cool!" And being in the "impossible" group could actually be thought of as a positive thing instead of negative. Contrary to popular belief, I really don't like giving one-star reviews, simply because *I* can't see how a level as possible. (but at least I tell people why I see it that way)

I don't know if there is a central way to view ratings as a whole, behind the scenes. But it's an interesting idea.

Re: The infamous objective vs subjective debate impass...even an averaging of opinions is still a subjective result, because the opinions themselves are subjective. You can't gather a bunch of different size lemons, squeeze them together to average the flavor, and then call the result: orange juice.

 

Some ideas for difficulty level names:
NR/not rated
Tutorial (training wheels)
Simple (your dog could do it by licking the screen)
Easy
Average/normal
Hard/difficult
Advanced
Tricky
Sneaky
Challenging
Insane
Demonic
Impossible
Automatic - maybe those "play itself, one tap" levels could just be a difficulty rating?

 

The wisdom of the crowd is a powerful force.

 

Wisdom?
Humans?

 

And again, you either misunderstood, or you are deliberately twisting my words around to suit your argument.

" if you don't like that answer… " Referred to not liking my OVERALL explanation/reason, not just a single part of it.

I really wish you understood analogies. The dog/cat analogy certainly is relevant in showing how people just KNOW something, in an objective way, and has nothing to do with hybrids... I don't know what hat you pulled THAT out of.

Level types ARE objective. I don't know where you keep thinking they're not.

When you look at an orange, you KNOW it's a fruit, right?
You don't need to understand God's thought processes to make that determination.
You also don't need to know the thought processes of the orange to know that it's a fruit.
You just KNOW,
.
The same is true of levels, you just KNOW what you're looking at, and so does everyone else... And when you see a collection of levels on a page that all have the same focus, you will begin to see how they relate to one another in an OBJECTIVE way. It will be very obvious to you, and to everyone else, because the focus is objective.

You simply are not interested in learning about puzzles or types, because it's obvious you're not making any effort to do so.
You simply are not interested in the complexity that puzzle's present, because you don't want to make the effort to do any of the work in categorizing them

You want to take easy, lazy man's way out and do it not only by difficulty, but by letting EVERYONE ELSE DO THE WORK in terms of rating the difficulty.

I volunteered to do an extremely complex and tedious job
I'm willing to work.
I'm willing to put in the effort required, even if it requires working alone.

You aren't even willing to put in the effort to put your own method into effect...without crowdsourcing it....for even MORE subjective opinions.

 

@richardfu Precision can't be the FOCUS because it's not a ball game. Nor is it a level in which the SOLE PURPOSE of the level is to hit balls to score in some way. Your balls are meant to simply fill holes so the bot can walk across. It is a secondary tag, but it's not the focus.

Earlier you said that the focus was on the zappers and you claimed it was a dodger level.

So you don't even know the focus of your own level.

So how the heck can you even hope to be assisting in categorizing the levels, if you aren't willing to learn how to "see" the forest for the trees?

 

Are you now telling me you have no clue what a ball game is?? I truly didn't think you were that ignorant. Now I know why you are fighting me at every step.... And so does everyone else, now.

Golf is a ballgame, soccer is a ball game, billiards is a ball game, shooting balls into baskets is a ball game, dropping balls down a wall, is a ballgame.

Your example is not a ball game… The balls are merely incidental to the movement of the bot along the path. Not a focus of the level, and not the sole purpose of the level.

You were totally the wrong choice to be put on this project, if you don't even know what a ball game is. Everyone ELSE simply "KNOWS", and don't need it to be explained to them... Because a ball game, is an objective category.

 

As usual, you cannot see beyond your nose, and are incapable of thinking outside the box if you can't follow that.

 

It's not meaningless to an intelligent person, you simply can't follow it.

 

I'm not going to step into the subjective/objective debate because I just don't think that it's productive. I think I'd rather slip and fall on dog crap.

Here are my thoughts on categorization.

Difficultly Rating
Having too many difficulty name tag/categories is useless. If we a had a difficult number scale instead, say from 1 to 10. What would distinguish a 6 from a 7? The granularity is just too small. I think that more than 5 levels is too many and that 3 is too few. So 5 feels like a good number to me. I would also prefer a number value rather than a word to describe the difficultly of a level.

Size
The problem with a size category is that we don't have an easy way to measure size. If Mekorama had a statistics panel that showed the dimensions and block count of a level than I think this more doable. Note that some large levels may be mostly air, so pure dimensional size gives a false impression. An density number (total blocks divided by total area) would be an interesting number, but still wouldn't tell you much other than if you'll be interacting with a brick or a spacious level. Some creators are able to pack to the same amount of playable game in a quarter the space of others. Large levels can be over-complicated and painful in a bad way (i.e. large maze with a ton of zapper bots) or sprawling pieces of art, small ones can be clever little masterpieces or junk "first levels" created by newbies. A medium level tells you pretty much nothing. So I would down vote having a size category. It's just not meaningful.

Tags
While having a wide assortment of tags to categorize levels such as "puzzle path", "precision", "gauntlet run", "zappers", "balls", "minimal", etc. are useful to players, especially for finding levels of the style they enjoy playing, it's going to be extremely difficult for moderators to enforce. Currently tags are optional and there is no way to force creators to use specific tags. With the sheer number of levels now appearing it's going to be challenging for moderators to play every one and ensure that tags have been applied appropriately. New members which don't know any better will continue to post levels named "New Level" of author "Unknown" and with no tags.

Categories
Short of having the moderators review every level and slot them into the correct category, which isn't practical, the only way to pull this off is to force creators to assign a categories to new levels when they are submitted. These category fields would be mandatory. No empty fields would be permitted. Certainly difficultly would be required category, and perhaps the style of level could be another. Other possibilities below.

Cleverness
Similar to difficulty, but separate. A level could scaled on a cleverness scale/category. With 5 requiring the most brainpower and 1 the least.

Dexterity
Similar to difficulty, but separate. A level could scaled on a dexterity scale/category. With 5 requiring the most precision (ball flicking or bot/free block moving), and 1 the least.

Summary

• As before an optional tag field with creators can use.
  
• Levels have a required Difficultly level on a scale of 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest).
• Levels have a required Cleverness level on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 requiring the most brainpower)
• Levels have a required Dexterity level on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 requiring the most physical precision)
• No size category.
• Also, with both Cleverness and Dexterity scales, a separate Difficulty category may not be needed.

 

I like your ideas, retrograde. You should been here earlier before the fight started.

Size is a bit weird, yes… There really isn't a way to tag size other than things like minimal, average, and full world. Some creators have listed the number of moves it takes to complete the level, others have noted it in minutes. And still others have simply noted that it was a 3 x 3 grid, or some other measurement. I think those are good enough when they can be determined.

I like the term Dexterity better then agility or Precision… That's why we needed you, retrograde

Cleverness is an interesting concept… Not sure how that can fit it in yet but I'll think on it.

As for all the names for levels of difficulty, they were just interesting names I ran across and I thought it might give us some fun ideas. I really think that "impossible" should be used however, for the reasons that were suggested earlier.