Side competition proposal: Powergear Cup

[Overdrijf]

I just had a rough idea, and as I can't decide whether it should go in cars and rules or car bonuses I decided to set up a new thread for it. I'm proposing to help limit the amount of powergear surprises by rewarding people for finding them, preferably early-ish in the race. I suggest doing this by setting up a side competition, but with a bit of a twist compared to the amateur league or the GAR scoreboard. What I'm thinking of is closer to the mountain classification in cycling races, you get points for doing things that are almost unrelated to the main competition and in some cases even hurt your own chances in it.

Now, how to do that is a bit of a thing, I just thought of the concept within the last hour or so, but as an example of how it could be done consider the following:

- There is a little side scoreboard tracking only times posted using one of the powergear capable cars. (The status of something like the Speedgate is going to be a hot topic the first time it appears together with this concept.)
- Every race has three moments of measurement: the end of the public days, the start of the quiet days, and the end of the race.
- If you have the first, second or third fastest (corrected) time on the powergear scoreboard when one of these moments of measurement arrives you get 3, 2 or 1 point(s) respectively.
- These points are doubled if that replay also holds the same spot on the overall scoreboard. So for instance third on the side scoreboard and third on the overall scoreboard gets you 2 points. The reason for this is that we are mostly interested in having people find PG lines when PG might actually win the race. (It still counts if the PG replay would have gotten the same spot on the overall scoreboard if only you yourself hadn't posted a faster time with a non-PG car. That particular rule might be a little tricky to implement automatically.)
- The points are tallied up towards the end of the season, the person with the most points at the end is the powergear champion.

Possible variations:
- The second point of measurement could be moved earlier in the race. Like say 20 days after the start, rather than at the start of the quiet days. I'm not sure what would be best. Setting the point of measurement on the quiet days might make people think "it's just three days, I can reveal my time now and score points on both moments of measurement". At the same time people might feel like a revelation that late doesn't give everybody a fair chance to try and beat the time.
- The idea started with the concept of a bounty, where either the track editor, the previous point winner or an appointed "PG sheriff" would set a challenge like "the first person to post a replay that gets into PG at the loop and stays in it until the second tunnel without incurring penalty time gets a PG point", but I figure while fun that idea has too many moving parts and at least one person who is not allowed to compete.
- Another variation could be not limiting the points to the first three positions, but rather handing out points in the same way as for a regular race, starting at 12 points. The reason I propose not doing that is a little sneaky maybe: I want to motivate people who see a PG possibility but figure they'll never be the race winner anyway to go for those early points. Scoring six points for the powergear cup plus leading time by grabbing a temporary first place after ten days of racing is a pretty sweet bounty. And the rest of us gets a warning that this could be a PG race and a replay that shows the line that has been discovered. At the same time only rewarding the top three might demotivate non-top drivers, they don't need to look for powergear lines because they feel like they're not going to make the top three anyway...
- Dropping the "double points if your lap beats non-PG cars" thing might make the rules clearer and easier to understand.

So, that's my idea for a combination side-competition - powergear surprise-finder for next season. Any thoughts on it?


TL;DR: A separate seasonal scoreboard in which you get points for having fast powergear laps at the end of the public days, at the start of the quiet days and at the end of the race. (This bit added for clarification.)

[Daniel3D]

I have to read this again a few times.

But it gave me an idea as well..
( sorry Overdrijf )
A LTB bonus tied to PG lap's. (You have to specify a PG lap when uploading)
The one with longest single PG-LTB gets a x% time bonus on top. The second longest PG-LTB a lesser amount and third even less. (Eg 10%, 6% and 3%) that could make an early slightly slower time give advantage over a later faster time.

It would make early posting of possible winning laps profitable but also give a good chance to work on an better one.

[Cas]

Uhm... This sounds good, but is pretty complex. It'd be good to continue to develop on ideas like these, but probably, that wouldn't be ready for implementation on this season.

One thing that calls my attention is that, as I had mentioned in the other post, you're required one way or another to qualitatively determine whether a replay constitutes a PG race. There is no black and white way to measure this; some human must judge. Not that this is hard to do... but maybe applying this sort of subjective verification clashes with the natural rules of a free-style tournament like ZakStunts... I don't know.

Personally, while there's still a lot to add and discuss on this, I think it's a very good approach to try to find this sort of solution, because it helps prevent unwanted PG surprises without killing PG itself. I feel that's the ultimate goal.

[Daniel3D]

you're required one way or another to qualitatively determine whether a replay constitutes a PG race. There is no black and white way to measure this; some human must judge.

Not necessarily. If you make it possible for the uploader to flag it as PG lap. If it is or isn't doesn't really matter, because a true PG lap will always be faster.
PG capable players can judge them among themselves 

[Duplode]

This would be a fun thing to try! Like Cas, I'm not sure if a full-fledged implementation could be arranged in time for the upcoming season; in any case, workshopping the possibilities is sure worth it. A few quick thoughts:

• Something that could probably be set up quickly is a simple side scoreboard, exactly like the GAR one but for PG car replays. It's not clear if that would have the desired effects without an LTB-like system, though.
• There is at least one historical precedent for the moments of measurement concept: SDR used a checkpoint system as an alternative to LTB, with the top three pipsqueaks at the end of each week getting bonus points. As far as I can remember that system worked pretty well.
• On true PG laps, I agree with Daniel, and think adding all laps with PG cars to the side scoreboard would be good enough for our purposes.

[dreadnaut]

The idea is interesting, although would depend on some kind of "checkpoint system" that ZakStunts does not support at the moment. It might appear this year though, since it's the same that would enable revealing quiet replays automatically.

A small problem with the PG side scoreboard: currently "tagged" replays are automatically public; so it would be an incentive not to tag them during quiet days 🤔  Might be something I can work around though.

I have to say PG "surprises" are part of the competition though. They are rare enough, and everyone has the tools to find them. (not necessarily the time or motivation, but then it's the same with the whole game)

[Overdrijf]

On true PG laps, I agree with Daniel, and think adding all laps with PG cars to the side scoreboard would be good enough for our purposes.

I agree with me on that too, this might avoid the whole "tagged replays are automatically public" thing as well.

[alanrotoi]

I have to say PG "surprises" are part of the competition though. They are rare enough, and everyone has the tools to find them. (not necessarily the time or motivation, but then it's the same with the whole game)

I must agree. The current best way to "avoid" surprises is to be part of a team.

[Cas]

I really like that statement too. I very much agree with it