Map length in /c info

[Kasebett]

Showing map length in /c info would be incredibly helpful. For many players, the key factor when choosing what map to play isn't as much as its map type but its length, which can differ immensely within a difficulty. Here are some maps whose length isn't nearly the same yet they're in the same difficulty and map type as extreme examples: Gearburn: Alone at Night - Gearburn: The Savior , MC:BM - Shattered Archive , Breaking Free 2 - Breaking Free , Theory of Everything - Aztec. Being able to view their estimate of length would give way more information about the map that a player is looking for when selecting a map to play.

 

[gemuse]

how do you estimate length

 

[Kasebett]

how do you estimate length

average non-speedrun time spent on a map would work

 

[ShutUpAndDrive]

average non-speedrun time spent on a map would work

what counts as non-speedrun tho

 

[Deleted member 4181]

For the majority of maps you can just look at speedrun times and they should give a pretty good idea. The only major exception I can think of is elitist mazes.

(If we did want to actually pursue this idea, it could probably be done by averaging only first finish times.)

 

[AverageIPA]

In my opinion this wouldn’t work for multiple reasons.
It does seem like a nice thing that we could kind of make some length rating system but the issues is with the averages. There are many maps on this server where someone has left the server for literal YEARS and come back and had a 1000HR+ time so it would be skewed by times like that.
I feel like creating a CONSISTENT rating system would be especially difficult and would be skewed by rare instances and wierd map quirks.

Example: Recursion is a really long puzzle to solve, however the majority of times are less than 5 seconds because once you have the answer you can just beat the map. You might beat it in 1h 30 mins but the average map time will list as 5-15 seconds which isn’t an accurate representation of time spent. On the flip side a map like factory would have a much higher average time than it should be due to skewed completions, with completions in the hundreds of thousands there are several hundred or thousand crazy times that wouldn’t normally be representative of the map.

TL : DR It’s impossible to create a consistent rating system for length, due to crazy outlier times and wierd map quirks.

 

[Bahnarli]

I'll take a crack at this, I'll follow up if I find a way to avoid major outliers in a consistent and useful way

 

[Deleted member 4181]

I'll take a crack at this, I'll follow up if I find a way to avoid major outliers in a consistent and useful way

The first finish thing I mentioned could at least ensure that it's not skewed by speedruns, but I'm not sure about the infrastructure for that. As for avoiding outliers, I thought a bit about using a statistics algorithm like eliminating times a certain standard deviation away from the mean or median.

 

[ShutUpAndDrive]

The first finish thing I mentioned could at least ensure that it's not skewed by speedruns, but I'm not sure about the infrastructure for that. As for avoiding outliers, I thought a bit about using a statistics algorithm like eliminating times a certain standard deviation away from the mean or median.

i'd say remove the top and bottom 10%-25% of times (obviously also remove the invalid times), then calculate the mean and the median, add them together, divide by 2 (you could also weigh the mean or the median more than the other), then you have a number

that is obviously far from perfect, and i also don't know how much that would lag the server

and then add in the fact that some maps will have a much more greenies+ centric completion rate; almost any new map will (see the floor is lava), or most super hard maps (the chainweaver, thrice), or the fact that there's quite a few shorter, harder maps with little or no checkpoints (sheol, dodecad, warped, warped 2), or much longer, easier maps (breaking free 2, yokai), or hub maps with quick completions (another castle, gravity, broadway, project: survival), or maps that far more than 10%-25% of people recomplete (recursion, i can't think of other examples), or... the list goes on

that's my best guess though on a blueprint of a formula that could maybe work

 

[Dumbmutt]

I don't think it's that hard to just eyeball the length of a map by just playing or existing in it. The measurements wouldn't have to be extremely exact or even registered numerically via a formula.

However, "guesstimations" or opinions on what is long or not would always be up to debate and I doubt most people would be satisfied with a very loose definition/calculation of length.

 

[rickyboy320]

I like the discussion, so I thought I'd help with providing some easily parseable data for a small selection of parkour maps. I can provide other maps if necessary.

 

[Mr Muffin]

Hi there, I am not sure if I am allowed to participate in these sorts of forum discussions but this sounds like a great idea!

I for one would love to see this in practice and am definitely one to factor in (to a great extent) the length of maps when deciding on which ones to play.

From reading the other responses it does sound like a tough challenge to implement using an average speed running time + coding orientated approach.

Perhaps a map length rating system based on the subjective opinions of The Board may be a potential solution.

Maps could be categorised into 5 groups such as: Very short, Short, Medium, Long and Very Long. The Board could assign this piece of information to each map prior to its release.

The only downside is that the server has 100s of maps that would have to be reviewed, making it an extremely time consuming process. However, this could be done over the course of a few years.

Either way this is just a suggestion and I hope you’re all doing well!

TLDR: Recommending a categorised map length rating system based on the discretion of The Board.