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MaGL X2 Discussion - MaGL X2 Lands TOMORROW. GET. HYPE.

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Re: MaGL X2 Discussion. No raocows! NOT the sign up thread!

Post by Unaniem »

Isrieri wrote:
Kerkec wrote:good luck, judges, please don't die
I'd like to echo that sentiment. I'm kind of glad I didn't make the cut now. I shudder to think how long its going to take.
Same here, haha
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Re: MaGL X2 Discussion. No raocows! NOT the sign up thread!

Post by S.N.N. »

Re: the huge amount of entries

I'm curious as to how this whole thing is going to be handled at this point. It's clear that Horikawa didn't anticipate this many entries (no one did), and I think it goes without saying that there are going to be a lot of rankings that are off if the judging is done from an arbitrary numerical standpoint. I'm almost wondering if picking a top 10-20, and then clustering the rest based on general quality would work better (i.e. put 15ish levels in a world that are "pretty good", another 15ish levels in another world that are "poor", etc). At the very least, it would shut down any "why did 220th rank higher than 223rd" arguments that are bound to pop up.

Then again, I'm just musing. It's probably too late to change around the judging criteria, and I doubt the judges would want to.
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Post by ano0maly »

I suggest putting the scores in BIG CAPS and the rankings in a minimal font size
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Post by CapedLuigisYoshi »

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Post by TaviTurnip »

S.N.N. wrote:Re: the huge amount of entries

I'm curious as to how this whole thing is going to be handled at this point. It's clear that Horikawa didn't anticipate this many entries (no one did), and I think it goes without saying that there are going to be a lot of rankings that are off if the judging is done from an arbitrary numerical standpoint. I'm almost wondering if picking a top 10-20, and then clustering the rest based on general quality would work better (i.e. put 15ish levels in a world that are "pretty good", another 15ish levels in another world that are "poor", etc). At the very least, it would shut down any "why did 220th rank higher than 223rd" arguments that are bound to pop up.

Then again, I'm just musing. It's probably too late to change around the judging criteria, and I doubt the judges would want to.
Horikawa Otane wrote:
I would not be happy if the judging criteria itself was changed after already expecting the number-based system we were told about... if this was discussed in advance for next time, obviously go ahead and do whatever for the next event, but we already have expectations and I guess I'm really not partial to plans being changed when I'm already involved with something =w=

I'm also just a personal fan of critical, exact measurements of things and not vague areas of categorization, but that's just me personally :x It's why I hate letter grades in school, because one person's A- was objectively better than the other person beside them who also got A- on the test, but they're rewarded with the same thing.
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Post by Ivy »

RenaTurnip wrote: I'm also just a personal fan of critical, exact measurements of things and not vague areas of categorization, but that's just me personally :x It's why I hate letter grades in school, because one person's A- was objectively better than the other person beside them who also got A- on the test, but they're rewarded with the same thing.
Last year's contest showed the actual points out of 100 on the level descriptions, so there's always that to look at.
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Post by Ignoritus »

Horikawa Otane wrote:One thing I AM thinking about is changing the gimmick scoring to 5/5 rather than 10/10. Then increasing the fun scoring to 25/25 to compensate.

The reason for this is that I've seen some really good levels that kinda ignored the character side of the gimmick get unfairly unpunished because of that. I think that maybe the gimmick should be able to provide an edge, but not hurt a score as much as it is currently.

This would require the rejudging of a couple levels, but at this stage it wouldn't be too bad.

Thoughts?
No doubt. To be honest, if it weren't too late for that I'd have advised removing the character side of the gimmick altogether from scoring. it seems to me like a lot of people were absolutely baffled with what exactly was expected to make use of their character that wouldn't end up being forced usage of Peach's hover or the unique hammer suits or something similar that would have ended up being in every single level just for character usage points until everyone was absolutely sick of it.
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Post by raocow »

all I know is that if I get 164 instead of 163 I'm going to FLIP SO MANY TABLES IN RAGE
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Post by FusionWarrior »

Horikawa Otane wrote:One thing I AM thinking about is changing the gimmick scoring to 5/5 rather than 10/10. Then increasing the fun scoring to 25/25 to compensate.

The reason for this is that I've seen some really good levels that kinda ignored the character side of the gimmick get unfairly unpunished because of that. I think that maybe the gimmick should be able to provide an edge, but not hurt a score as much as it is currently.

This would require the rejudging of a couple levels, but at this stage it wouldn't be too bad.

Thoughts?
If it's not a bother, I would actually endorse this. I highly doubt it'd benefit me personally, but I do feel fun is one of the absolute most important factors in platforming levels.
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Post by Maiku Wotaharu »

Horikawa Otane wrote:One thing I AM thinking about is changing the gimmick scoring to 5/5 rather than 10/10. Then increasing the fun scoring to 25/25 to compensate.

The reason for this is that I've seen some really good levels that kinda ignored the character side of the gimmick get unfairly unpunished because of that. I think that maybe the gimmick should be able to provide an edge, but not hurt a score as much as it is currently.

This would require the rejudging of a couple levels, but at this stage it wouldn't be too bad.

Thoughts?
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Post by ano0maly »

I honestly prefer the scores to be left alone. If the contestant outright ignores the given directions and the contest theme, the entry should be penalized for it. Even if the level is otherwise good (and the other score categories can recognize that) it's basically out of place. The contestant could have made a level for some other contest or collab and yet chose to sign up for this contest, which means it's expected to adhere to the directions for this contest.

I say this more out of keeping integrity with a given event and less out of "current score rubric is better". There were past cases of arguing and drama because of midway rule changes in past talkhaus events.
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Post by Dragon Fogel »

Ignoritus wrote: No doubt. To be honest, if it weren't too late for that I'd have advised removing the character side of the gimmick altogether from scoring. it seems to me like a lot of people were absolutely baffled with what exactly was expected to make use of their character that wouldn't end up being forced usage of Peach's hover or the unique hammer suits or something similar that would have ended up being in every single level just for character usage points until everyone was absolutely sick of it.
I know I personally wasn't thinking too hard about how much my level made use of the character. I did try to keep the capabilities in mind, but my focus was on just learning to make a level. I feel it was a bit of extra pressure on people new to the engine.

That said, I played a lot of Peach and Link levels in testing and they all felt pretty distinct from each other.

I wouldn't be upset about this change; it would mainly benefit newer people who weren't as confident in using their characters, and to the extent it would change placement, it would be in a way that would result in less arguing because the extra points are going to "Fun". As I recall, some of the most-argued-about placements last year were due to fun levels with weaker aesthetics and less relevance to the name being beaten by duller or more frustrating levels that had better aesthetics. Especially at the bottom tier, where Grassy Way Plains lost to Mission: Proud Sky due to ignoring the naming gimmick and having no music.

The main reason I could see for objecting to it is that it's a rule change after everything's in... but while I do think that's an important general principle, well, there probably aren't a lot of people who would have drastically changed their levels if character choice was less important. I don't see this mild shift in points doing much harm; if someone was particularly effective with their level name and usage of character, they'll probably get good points in Creativity and that can even lead into more points in Fun.
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Post by raocow »

the way I understand it is that there is still point to sticking to your name and whatnot,but loosening on the 'has to use the character in a meaningful way' 2nd part.
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Post by Ignoritus »

ano0maly wrote:I honestly prefer the scores to be left alone. If the contestant outright ignores the given directions and the contest theme, the entry should be penalized for it. Even if the level is otherwise good (and the other score categories can recognize that) it's basically out of place. The contestant could have made a level for some other contest or collab and yet chose to sign up for this contest, which means it's expected to adhere to the directions for this contest.

I say this more out of keeping integrity with a given event and less out of "current score rubric is better". There were past cases of arguing and drama because of midway rule changes.

My problem is that the old score kind of contradicted the entire point of the contest. "Make a Good level! But be sure to force in one of a small set of arbitrary character based gimmicks in your otherwise Good level in order to make sure you get full points!"
Dragon Fogel wrote: I know I personally wasn't thinking too hard about how much my level made use of the character. I did try to keep the capabilities in mind, but my focus was on just learning to make a level. I feel it was a bit of extra pressure on people new to the engine.

That said, I played a lot of Peach and Link levels in testing and they all felt pretty distinct from each other.
I noticed a lot of the same, but that's because most of the levels I saw did more or less nothing to try and make use of their character because they were focusing on the primary goal of making a good level.
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Post by Wolfolotl »

I have very little skill at SMBX or playing platformers in general but as I see it, using a character's attributes =/= forcing in a specific gimmick
like make a luigi level where you jump high or a toad level where going fast is slightly better than taking your time! it's small stat- or mood-based things that can be pretty seamlessly integrated that can still make a level fit one character best
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Post by Dragon Fogel »

Ignoritus wrote:I noticed a lot of the same, but that's because most of the levels I saw did more or less nothing to try and make use of their character because they were focusing on the primary goal of making a good level.
Well, I mean, the Peach levels made use of hovering (and I can't recall any points where I thought the hovering was particularly forced, it really felt like part of the level) and the Link levels made use of sword and bombs and some his more unique mechanics. But, on the other hand, those are the two characters who have the most distinct abilities and so it's easier to design obstacles that are "for" them.

(For whatever reason, they made up a disproportionate amount of the levels I tested. I tested one level with Mario, one with Luigi, and one with Toad, and every other level used Peach or Link.)
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Re: MaGL X2 Discussion. No raocows! NOT the sign up thread!

Post by ano0maly »

Ignoritus wrote:My problem is that the old score kind of contradicted the entire point of the contest. "Make a Good level! But be sure to force in one of a small set of arbitrary character based gimmicks in your otherwise Good level in order to make sure you get full points!"
Eh, then it's our fault for voting for a contest layout that included the characters, and not bringing this up during planning.

I could get into the problem of "make a good level but not quite because there's this gimmick too" but that's been discussed many times since MAGL2. Point is, aside from MAGL1, it's no longer just about how good it is. There are gimmicks too and they affect the score.

This is how I see things: if you ignored the gimmick but made a very fun level, you will be rewarded with a good score in the fun subcategory. And you should be happy with that. The categories show exactly what you did and didn't achieve. Trying to balance out the score shares is only a problem when you tally up the total score, and TBH, I think you would only care about the total if you're interested more in the rankings.

And I've been repeatedly advocating downplaying the rankings in favor of the actual performance for each individual level.
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Post by Ditocoaf »

I guess the point where someone might complain is if they feel like they sacrificed a bit of "general fun factor" in order to use their character's unique attributes extensively because of the scoring. But I don't think anybody likely thought in those terms while making their level.
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Post by FrozenQuills »

Horikawa Otane wrote: Character Use is out of 5.
Name is out of 10.
Uniqueness is out of 15 instead of 20
Fun Factor is now 25/25.


This is the FINAL judging format because, starting tomorrow, levels are going to be played more extensively.
Can you give the final full rubric out of 100 due to these changes with music and graphics and all?
Otherwise it seems good to me at least.
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Post by Lejes »

There are so many levels that judging fatigue is probably going to be a bigger factor than any particular category. Not to mention that the number of entries exceeds the total possible points, so we're going to have like 60 people tied at 70/100 or something.
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Post by Zygl »

Horikawa Otane wrote:Okay well the character thing is important in that it drove people to make levels with different characters in new ways - that's most of what I wanted!

Look at the statistical spread - we're going to see A LOT of variety here and that's super great! I mean, the fact that Link beat out Luigi is incredible on its own.

So I want to assign points for that. And I will. HOWEVER, weighting it the same as the level name is... Problematic?

So okay what I'll do is this.

Character Use is out of 5.
Name is out of 10.
Uniqueness is out of 15 instead of 20
Fun Factor is now 25/25.


This is the FINAL judging format because, starting tomorrow, levels are going to be played more extensively.
I like this change, personally, I agree with using the characters' unique abilities (all one of them in the case of, say, Luigi) being weighted equally with the much more significant level name to be rather silly.
(I may also be partially motivated by the fact that the only unique thing about my character I made use of is [ispoiler]the heart system[/ispoiler] and even that was purely for technical lunalua stuff reasons, not anything apparent through gameplay... but only partially, I do also genuinely agree.)
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Post by FusionWarrior »

I wasn't around for the first MaGL X, but will we be informed of the breakdown of our scores as raocow plays our levels, or privately, or after, or w/e so we can learn and grow?
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Post by Ivy »

Horikawa Otane wrote:One thing I AM thinking about is changing the gimmick scoring to 5/5 rather than 10/10. Then increasing the fun scoring to 25/25 to compensate.

The reason for this is that I've seen some really good levels that kinda ignored the character side of the gimmick get unfairly unpunished because of that. I think that maybe the gimmick should be able to provide an edge, but not hurt a score as much as it is currently.

This would require the rejudging of a couple levels, but at this stage it wouldn't be too bad.

Thoughts?
As someone who didn't use any Lua and didn't make particular use of my chosen character, 100% yes. From an unbiased perspective... well, I guess you'd have to ask your other judges.
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Post by Ivy »

Horikawa Otane wrote: So the new rubric in total is...
Uniqueness (out of 15)
Personal Fun Factor (out of 25)
Other Person Fun Factor (out of 25)
Music (out of 10)
Graphics (out of 10)
Name Use (out of 10)
Character Use (out of 5)
I feel really bad changing the rubric, but this was really bothering me and before i get beyond having judged like 15 people I wanted to fix it! Sturg agreed with me, have yet to hear back from Quill, but he'll have to haha.
I was wondering why there was a -5 net change in the snippet you first gave, and then I remembered there are TWO fun factor contributors. Thank you for this!
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Post by Alice »

FusionWarrior wrote:I wasn't around for the first MaGL X, but will we be informed of the breakdown of our scores as raocow plays our levels, or privately, or after, or w/e so we can learn and grow?
I think Horikawa has said that the scores as well as feedback from each judge will be placed with each level in the game. Which is good because last year we got points for each entry but only Horikawa gave every level feedback with the other judges only very sporadically bothering even when feedback was directly requested from them.
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