Scores by playing platform

[CaptREC]

In walkthrough discussions, it will be occasionally noted that someone can’t get the higher scores because they are playing on a particular platform. I know @AMslimfordy is a math wiz. Seems like an analysis of scores by platform would be fairly straightforward and an interesting piece of info. What do you think, @admins?

Topic

[Sglouk]

@captrec

I think that it is an interesting idea, however, I know that some flingers use different platforms on some levels. (For example I have used PC v1.6.0 rather than iPhone v2.0.0 for Cosmic Crystal 7-8 because of some bug there.) Also, some changes from some version to other drastically affect the highscore one can obtain (e.g. Cosmic Crystals 7-5). For these, date dependent, rather than platform dependent highscore could be welcome. Therefore, unless people mention explicitely what they did, one cannot know how they proceeded, and some caution will be needed to make any analysis.

[CaptREC]

@sglouk
Undoubtedly you’re right. I play pretty much everything on my ipad. I’ve always wondered, though, if that was an advantage or not.

[sal9]

@captrec We really don’t have the time for that, and would require us to have all the platforms to analyze the minute variations.

Interesting idea though

[CaptREC]

Thanks for the feedback @sal9
I just figured that there must be a big spreadsheet somewhere in ABN that could be segmented and analyzed by platform, since many of the players have their preferred platform designated in their profile. I’ll just get back to waiting for Pig Days 5 :-)

[Kelani]

@captrec They may not have time for it, but I sure do. :) I play on PC and iOS, and am all too aware of the platform quirks. I’ve actually been working on a project for the last four months that documents some of the worst ones. I’ll be posting it in a week or two.

Basically, subtle variations between platforms do exist, but the effects are negligible and usually cancel each other out. There are some HUGE exceptions, though, and I’ve been able to prove that in certain levels, one or more platforms are severely handicapped. Part of the project’s scope is identifying those levels, so players hopefully won’t waste hours or days attempting the impossible.

ABN kinda does have that big spreadsheet you mentioned, albeit in the form of the leaderboards database. Since I don’t have console access to that, part of my research involved manually breaking down by platform the Top 1000 overall scores for every game. It took forever, and knowing how to write a sql query that’d do the job in 3 seconds didn’t help. :)

[CaptREC]

@kelani, wow! Gathering the data by hand would be a monumental task!
In my line of work, we have very large research databases. And breaking it down by various parameters doesn’t take that much time. IF the data are already there in an organized fashion.
I am so impressed you took the time to gather the data. Enjoy slicing and dicing it! I can’t wait to hear what you find.

[Kelani]

@captrec Well, fortunately after a few hours doing it the hard way, I realized I could view the page source, then search for each platform and use the # of results as my count. That did 100 at a time. Still painfully slow, but way better than hovering over 3,000 names and making tally marks. :)

I owe you a debt of gratitude. Your post inadvertently altered my project. A highly respected flinger saw my reply and sent me info which changed everything. Originally, I was tracking what I call PC-Cursed Levels (PCCL). Aside from Blossom River #20, where old iOS/devices make marmosets act like drunken bulls in a china shop, I had no evidence of PC having an advantage over iOS/Android. Now that I do, I clearly have more work to do.

This new scope does present a problem. While observations from flingers will find some levels, to find them all (and for the results to have any credibility whatsoever), I really need to know the total players/platform for each AB game. However, a busy admin spending 5 min. running SQL COUNT commands against the database to prove some new guy’s crackpot theory seems…unlikely. :)

Due to that, I got a platform count from searching the Member list, but those numbers (49% iOS, 27% Android, 22% PC 2% Other) don’t match the actual leaderboard ratios (79% iOS, 17% Android, 4% PC). So, we’ll see what happens.

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. I do love a mystery, and since we’re all hard-wired to complain about inequality (real or imagined), I’m hoping this will be productive. :)

[CaptREC]

@kelani
What you’re describing is truly epic! I’m amazed at what you have set out to do.
Your prelim findings are fascinating. I think it’s likely that some players only post the scores that are better. I know that I used to play till I got over average and then post the score. Now when I hit 3* I post, thinking it will help set a true average.
Might the over representation of iOS in the scores (versus the players) mean that iOS tends to have higher scores?
Keep me posted of the findings. Thanks!

[Kelani]

@captrec I also used to delay posting scores until a few ladies in the Bloated Pig told me posting sub-average scores prevents the average from becoming inflated, which is a problem for levels steamrolled by daily challenges, and those with fewer entered scores. They were right. I’ve entered a low score and seen the average drop by 20-100 points. If more people followed suit, the averages would drop quite a bit.

The iOS domination you mentioned is exactly why I need the actual platform distribution. I can compensate for it and find a true baseline, which will be a template for finding cursed levels. For example:

AB Space Overall 1st-2000th Place by Platform Percentage.
Any totals under 100% are due to no platform specified.

-----------------------------
Rank       iOS, And, PC
-----------------------------
1-100       75, 15, 10
101-200     64, 24, 12
201-300     71, 19, 9
301-400     78, 13, 7
401-500     56, 30, 13
501-600     66, 22, 10
601-700     66, 20, 13
701-800     61, 20, 12
801-900     70, 20, 9
901-1000    71, 17, 10
1001-1100   67, 16, 14
1101-1200   54, 28, 12
1201-1300   47, 34, 10
1301-1400   55, 31, 9
1401-1500   56, 19, 17
1501-1600   46, 28, 16
1601-1700   59, 24, 9
1701-1800   49, 25, 23
1801-1900   40, 24, 19
1901-2000   41, 21, 16
-------------------------

Top 2000 Average: 60% iOS, 23% Android, 13% PC, 4% Other
Top 100: 75% iOS, 15% Android, 10% PC
————————-

Using those ratios, I’d expect to find a similar ratio on any episode or level. If a level’s Top 100 is 35% iOS, 59% Android, 6% PC, IMO, that’s a red flag. As far as what % variance is statistically significant, I have no idea. A common threshold is 5%, but I don’t know if that’s appropriate here. I was just a music major, so for that, I must defer to any ABN math gurus who want to chime in.

The Top 100 ratio may be useful for quick-checking a level, but the Top 2000 ratio broken into 100-place chunks is better. At Episode/Game level, it can determine if any cursed levels exist. For a specific level, it does the same, in addition to determining if (and how) a platform’s scores may be affected. Take any level’s Overall Top 2000. If the expected breakdown is 75,15,10, but 1-100 is: 40% iOS, 37% Android, 23% PC, it suggests a quirk that handicaps iOS scores, or boosts scores for Android/PC.

Anyway, it’s a work in progress, and since I’m NOT a math guy, it’s highly likely my approach is flawed. I expect most cursed levels will be reported by talented flingers. As I have no way to test Android, I’d prefer to use math to confirm them. Also, it’d be much less work than manually running each candidate level through TestBox for a week. :)

[Maiasatara]

What are the total number of players in each platform? I’ve often felt, on a level-by-level basis that there are some that clearly DON’T favor IOS but don’t have any records kept. We also don’t know how many hours each group plays. Do IOS and Android play more frequently because their devices are more portable? The end result numbers are interesting but I think we’d need data on more variables to make any meaningful conclusions. I, too, studied Music, (and Psych) but the only math classes I enjoyed were Statistics!