Hosting guidlines debate.

[markmadras]

In reply to Dave from A 069 Stereo

I agree with your thoughts Dave, but to enable a clear distinction between the A and B League contests we would need a list of parameters to work to and I doubt if anyone will ever be able to create one. If every material including Dillos and Portals were all a fixed size, and all levels were created within fixed boundary lines, with fixed prices, fixed gravity and so on you might stand half a chance to lay down some useful guidelines.

These guidelines are probably as close as you will ever get, they come from the original contest hosting guide that was written by PeterT, follow the link to see the rest. Look at the time period suggested for solving a level in each League, 1.5hours for A and 3 hours for B .

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1003

Additional guidelines for type A:
- Only levels that were created using the ingame editor exclusively. (No multiple armadillos, portals, overlong metal bars etc.)
- Levels should be solveable (not cheaply, just solvable!) in no more than 1.5 hours by an average player that has finished the main game and extra levels.

Additional guidelines for type B:
- You may meddle with the level file in any way you wish, as long as you test it well
- One contest may consist of more than one level. This fits into the naming scheme by just varying the [YourNameForTheLevel] part.
- Levels should be solvable in 3 hours by regular contestants (higher level of experience compared to the normal players above).

[DaveLloyd180]

That makes more sense to me.
How many people in the A and B Leagues have read that?
I guess the link to these 'rules' should be included in the 'rules' for each contest level.
Sounds to me as though they were intended to be - and, over time, have been lost.

Peter's note just needs updating to reflect only A and B now I guess.

I personally don't mind what we play too - just so long as everyone agrees - and then doesn't complain about other Creator's creations when they dont like one.

Dave

[markmadras]

These guidlines are very basic and would be easy to adhere to, the only part I am not sure about is the suggested length of time to solve (not cheaply) the level, it seems a very long time IMHO . I don't suppose many of us spend more than 30 minutes on even the hardest levels, but when it comes to making the solution cheap, well, that is another matter .

Using this guide Votart's Unpossible would have qualified for the A Leage

[rob]

I doubt following these rules is the best way to go. Back when these rules were created AR was single dillo only, to use multiple dillo's you needed an extra program. In order not to confuse people all levels that needed some extra program to create them were not done in A league.
One of the sellingpoints of AR2 will be the use of multiple dillo's so I think that when peter creates a new set of levels to go with the game he will include multi-dillo levels as well. Seems weird to ban them for A league. Furthermore I can see a lot of levels that are pretty simple to solve and not too tweaky that use 2 (or more) dillo's.
The mentioned times are weird too. If I ever need as much as 1,5 hours to make a first solution for a level I would definately call it B league....

In the end I think it's just not possible to create a good set of rules to determine if something is A or B. Just use common sence and if an A level is too hard (or a B level is too easy) we tell the host (politely) what we think about it.

[markmadras]

I agree

Realistically common sense has to be the only guide we can use and sometimes, we will get it wrong .

[Votart Silak]

I completely agree with Rob!

[V4nKw15h]

Firstly let me say that I was never complaining about any level specifically. My comment about making A league levels faster to tweak was simply to point out that the recent trend to make time consuming A leagues was likely ruling out players like myself, and most likely a lot of potential new players. The level designs have been entertaining and ingenious yet simply take too long for me to compete.

Making rules about level design is not going to solve the problem in my opinion. It's all up to the designer and common sense.

The moment two dillos must interact with either each other or the same structure, the time to tweak magnifies.
The moment anything random is included into a level the level of frustration, and time to tweak, magnifies.

Whenever I play a level where tweaking results in a near random result, I lose interest almost immediately. The level then becomes a challenge of endurance rather than skill. The last two A leagues have both relied on randomness for the cheapest solutions.

To me the simple clean designs are the ones I know I can tweak to a maximum in 1 to 2 hours.

A single dillo, single portal, some clean but well thought out obstacles, no random behaviour. That's the basis of a good A league level to me. However, I can also think of multiple dillo levels that don't turn into a battle of endurance and are suitable for quick A leagues.

Ideally I should be able to think of a solution and make it work in 10-15 minutes. Then I have time to try out many different ideas and refine my solution towards something truly competitive. If it takes 30+ minutes to make each tweak work again, it's already game over for me.

However, I'm well aware that creating the ideal level is itself a time consuming and difficult thing. I don't think anyone should feel bad if they don't make a level that I'm able to get involved in. I was simply pointing out that if you guys want maximum players you might want to consider faster A leagues.

[decsystem10]

Hmm.
I don't usually get involved in these, but feel especially qualified as the longest serving 'A' leaguer !

Somewhere the concept of 'fun' disappeared. People get that from quite diffferent aspects of the game - some from simply solving an interesting or amusing level, some hard cases from 'tweaking' so they beat everyone by 1$. But there is far too much emphasis on how long it took to tweak - a theme which recurs in the chat in many of the contests.

An A league is interesting to solve, firstly to solve it at all, then to amuse yourself by improving. The latest shoot-out was an example of amusing, fun to solve but I'm sure a little flooky to tweak. I suspect many downloaders enjoy the fun of solving levels, then may play around a bit later. However, the 'gap' (downloads v entries) is almost certainly those who aren't tweak freaks.

Too many A levels are what, in many sports, would be the 'kata' - getting the dillo up, on or over a sterile picture, but no story or length. Now we get some wonderful new lifters and throwers out of this - I wish I had time to study them all - and it really taxes the true technicians amongst you, but it might not grab everybody. By contrast, the excellent block puzzle 'Rush Hour' had queries as to whether it was A league. Of course it was - it was interesting, it had depth and it was easy to solve - but at vast expense - winning solutions would be much harder.

An additional limitation comes from curbing the budget. Great B trick - "solve this with 40$ if you can!" But in A, why don't you let new people at least solve the puzzle you spend valuable time devising. It's really disheartening to see an intriguing level, look to have fun with it, and realise that the budget is 25$ or the author has a thing against timers or rockets.

You don't need 'rules'. If you build levels that everyone wants to try, they will sooner or later get competitive. If you threaten them with pure mechanics requiring the wierd physics of overlapped nodes and 30 minutes balancing ropes, they won't get involved to begin with. Remember, we are all short of time - does your new level make someone think "oh - I'll have a quick go at that"?

As many are saying above - it's common sense and I would add - with an added sense of 'inclusion'.

[markmadras]

Decsystem10, you have raised some very interesting points but I don't quite understand this comment---

It's really disheartening to see an intriguing level, look to have fun with it, and realise that the budget is 25$ or the author has a thing against timers or rockets.


I can't recall any level where there has been a restricting budget or have I misunderstood

[decsystem10]

Thanks, Mark - serves me right for exaggerating.
Most stuff these days is fairly free especially as people play with pricing, but there were earlier tight ones.
Is suppose MarkM Smile budget 1000 with rockets at 1000 qualifies or Voidy.
The principle was not to put someone off by being tight - in the end the cheapest wins whether you let people have 1000 or 10000 to start.
And yes, you can always go over to get going, but red ink is always off-putting.

[markmadras]

OK, that's cleared up my confusion.

I think we can conclude from all the comments so far that implementing rules is not only going to hinder level design it will be quite impractical to do.

The only thing that may be helpfull, especially for beginners, will be some guidlines, not disimilar to those which PeterT created for AR1.