Dev Update: Ninjas, Ninjas Everywhere | Forums

[Haarmes]

few things i noticed. i think the redlynx ninjas are still higher than they should be, and maybe this is because they were on the uplay recommendet tracks when they were crossplatformed and people played them way more? i think there is a huge group of people that play uplay recommendet tracks on TC and pretty much nothing else. and i figuret that if you make these redlynx NJ scores 60% ( X 0.6 ) of what they are now i think they are farely accuret. i don't know if this is a legit way of doing it if the crossplatted ninja tracks are appearing on the ninja tabs on tc and not the uplay recommendet like i think they are going to :P

[IImayneII]

I am only following this thread on and off, so forgive my rambling, but to me it seems like there is maybe a bit too much focus going towards the statistics now, with trying to set boundaries based on them and trying to adjust some of the tracks into their proper categories. While that is fine, I don't think there should be alot of focus on it. I think with going off from the statistics it will end up with a system that rates tracks post-publishing, while I would rather see a system that is usefull during the creation of a track so builders can implement the right obstacles for a certain difficulty instead of having to wait for people to play the track and base the difficulty off that. Because when you base the difficulty off the statistics I feel like it will be a too variable system. Since depending on how many veteran ninja riders/new players play a track, I assume the score will still vary.

[scarrha34]

few things i noticed. i think the redlynx ninjas are still higher than they should be, and maybe this is because they were on the uplay recommendet tracks when they were crossplatformed and people played them way more? i think there is a huge group of people that play uplay recommendet tracks on TC and pretty much nothing else. and i figuret that if you make these redlynx NJ scores 60% ( X 0.6 ) of what they are now i think they are farely accuret. i don't know if this is a legit way of doing it if the crossplatted ninja tracks are appearing on the ninja tabs on tc and not the uplay recommendet like i think they are going to :P

That's pretty much what I said and that's why I asked for the way they mixed Cross plarform tracks and single platform tracks but you can't just arbitrarily choose a number.
I don't know how they did but I think the problem is coming from a mistake in proportion, cause if you compare result from different population number you need to use proportions not simple numbers. If the ninja population is bigger on One (I think it is) you need to report the score to the total population accross platform with weight equal to the proportion of ninjas per platform.

[scarrha34]

I am only following this thread on and off, so forgive my rambling, but to me it seems like there is maybe a bit too much focus going towards the statistics now, with trying to set boundaries based on them and trying to adjust some of the tracks into their proper categories. While that is fine, I don't think there should be alot of focus on it. I think with going off from the statistics it will end up with a system that rates tracks post-publishing, while I would rather see a system that is usefull during the creation of a track so builders can implement the right obstacles for a certain difficulty instead of having to wait for people to play the track and base the difficulty off that. Because when you base the difficulty off the statistics I feel like it will be a too variable system. Since depending on how many veteran ninja riders/new players play a track, I assume the score will still vary.

You right when you say that it will vary depending on the players, especially when we know that there is very few ninja players, statistics don't like small numbers.
But I don't see any way to judge the difficulty before any kind of statistics or during the creation of the track. It's not like you good give a grade to an obstacle.

[IImayneII]

It's not like you good give a grade to an obstacle.

I don't see why not, it's like that for every other difficulty besides ninja's. Obstacles are a bit harder to define, but things like certain techniques/combo techniques can defenitly be linked to certain ninja levels. I would use the stats graph to pull obstacles/techniques used in those tracks and link them to certain difficulties. Ofcourse there will never be a 100% perfect system, but tagging difficulty after publishing a track feels like a bad idea. I feel it's the same with other difficulties, you don't make a track, publish it and tag the difficulty afterwards compared to how people do on your track. T

he most important thing imo is for creators to know how obstacles/techniques scale trough the seperate difficulty levels, not tagging a difficulty to a track afterwards because it's going to be the same problem as we have now. People will get better at ninja's, stats will change, and harder ninja's will get statistically lower ninja levels tagged to them. Even things like tagging a track with a certain level in the name influences the stats because the higher it is tagged, te lesser people who will try it. If only the real pro's take on high levels, they might make a track look easier than it really is, unless that's accounted for in the statistics, wich I have no idea if it is atm.

TLDR
I think the stats will be a good way to try to find a consistent general rule of thumb for difficulties, but imo if you are going to tag the difficulty based on those stats it's going in the wrong direction. They should aid in setting up a consistent system, not define the difficulty based on how well people do on them.

[Jonny]

I think Scarrha had just touched on something i also thought of last night. The fact that some higher level ninjas release with checkpoints will taint the actual rating of that track making it considerably lower than it perhaps should be. I dont think there is really anything we can do about this.

[StormPsykoz]

Quick question : Are the ninja track drops going to be each week like the UGC track drops ?

[scarrha34]

I don't see why not, it's like that for every other difficulty besides ninja's. Obstacles are a bit harder to define, but things like certain techniques/combo techniques can defenitly be linked to certain ninja levels. I would use the stats graph to pull obstacles/techniques used in those tracks and link them to certain difficulties. Ofcourse there will never be a 100% perfect system, but tagging difficulty after publishing a track feels like a bad idea. I feel it's the same with other difficulties, you don't make a track, publish it and tag the difficulty afterwards compared to how people do on your track. T

he most important thing imo is for creators to know how obstacles/techniques scale trough the seperate difficulty levels, not tagging a difficulty to a track afterwards because it's going to be the same problem as we have now. People will get better at ninja's, stats will change, and harder ninja's will get statistically lower ninja levels tagged to them. Even things like tagging a track with a certain level in the name influences the stats because the higher it is tagged, te lesser people who will try it. If only the real pro's take on high levels, they might make a track look easier than it really is, unless that's accounted for in the statistics, wich I have no idea if it is atm.

TLDR
I think the stats will be a good way to try to find a consistent general rule of thumb for difficulties, but imo if you are going to tag the difficulty based on those stats it's going in the wrong direction. They should aid in setting up a consistent system, not define the difficulty based on how well people do on them.

You are right in theory but in practice I think you can't do it.
The difficulty lvl of an obstacle depend on the player, for example I have passed a lot of lvl 3 tracks based on pure technic or on back/front wheel stuff but when it comes to climbing tracks I have problem passing even lvl 2 tracks. Other players have the opposite problem. That's why we use statistics, cause we are all different and we wont have difficulties on the same obstacle.

Then you said that we can judge lvls by technic involved, yes and no, let's take a wall climb, the technic is the same if you have a 10 meters wall or a 50 meters wall but the difficulty is different. That's just an example but it's even harder to judge for other kind of obstacles. And you also have to take into account the fact that most tracks don't have 1 CP for 1 obstacle, same problem for long tracks, a 50 CP long track with lvl 1-2 obstacles can be considered of the same lvl as a short lvl 3.

In the end it's more about the obstacle in itself than just the technic involved, most purely technical ninjas use basic technics, that you learn playing lvl 1 tracks, but you can push it to his limit and create lvl 5 with it ( the best example for me is obviously Hallowvale).
Finally what I think you suggest is to create a sort of comparative table with ninja technics (or for me obstacles) and the associated lvl. It's not a bad idea in itself but it will be 3 pages long and it will get bigger every time a track is released, cause every obstacle is unique, and more importantly no one will ever watch a table while creating a track.

[IImayneII]

You are right in theory but in practice I think you can't do it.
The difficulty lvl of an obstacle depend on the player, for example I have passed a lot of lvl 3 tracks based on pure technic or on back/front wheel stuff but when it comes to climbing tracks I have problem passing even lvl 2 tracks. Other players have the opposite problem. That's why we use statistics, cause we are all different and we wont have difficulties on the same obstacle.

Then you said that we can judge lvls by technic involved, yes and no, let's take a wall climb, the technic is the same if you have a 10 meters wall or a 50 meters wall but the difficulty is different. That's just an example but it's even harder to judge for other kind of obstacles. And you also have to take into account the fact that most tracks don't have 1 CP for 1 obstacle, same problem for long tracks, a 50 CP long track with lvl 1-2 obstacles can be considered of the same lvl as a short lvl 3.

In the end it's more about the obstacle in itself than just the technic involved, most purely technical ninjas use basic technics, that you learn playing lvl 1 tracks, but you can push it to his limit and create lvl 5 with it ( the best example for me is obviously Hallowvale).
Finally what I think you suggest is to create a sort of comparative table with ninja technics (or for me obstacles) and the associated lvl. It's not a bad idea in itself but it will be 3 pages long and it will get bigger every time a track is released, cause every obstacle is unique, and more importantly no one will ever watch a table while creating a track.

While you make some good points, both views have their flaws and benefits.

While the difficulty level of an obstacle depends on the player, the difficulty tag on a track still stays the same for everyone, that's why you should use the statistics as a guide tool. Just because certain players are not 'skilled' enough on certain obstacles doesn't mean the obstacle is in a higher tier difficulty. The obstacle difficulty doesn't change because a certain amount of people have trouble with it, if that was the case than extremes should be tagged ninja for 90% of the community.

And I feel that this is just the core of the problem at the moment. If you base difficulties on how players perform on the tracks, then what if a big group of them get alot better during the next year? The statistics would change, and general harder tracks would fall into easier categories. Wich is the problem that is happening now, people rate ninja tracks easier because they just got better at them over time.

Yes, categorising techniques isn't set in stone, just like any other difficulty. But like the official difficulties, there are general techniques to be used at certain difficulties. It's probably just going to be a bit harder to define them for ninja's, but I don't see a problem with this. For me, as a builder, the most important thing is having an idea on what obstacles to use to make a consistent track. If you have no guidelines you can still end up with tracks that have obstacles all over the place and get thrown into higher difficulties because on 1 or 2 obstacles that shouldn't be in the track in the first place. Wich may create a wrong view of them because of it.

And yes, specially for ninja's the obstacles tend to be alot longer, that's why I mentioned techniques/combo techniques. If you do a wall climb into 2 bunny hops, that can still be considered one obstacle for a ninja track. And at least for me, longer tracks shouldn't be categorised in a higher difficulty because they are long (unless they take up like 20min to finish them). A long extreme track, is still an extreme track. It doesn't magically turn into a ninja because of that. I would rather call it an endurance extreme then than a ninja.

True, maybe I'm a bit too much focussed on techniques, and should take both sides, techniques and obstacles, into account. I agree it won't turn into a perfect list, but there are certainly some things you can use in for example a lvl3 that should never exist in a lvl 1 or 2. While that probably isn't the majority of the obstacles, it could create a guideline. And a "list" is maybe a bad word, as there is no list for the official difficulties either. But if it can work for those, then I don't see why it wouldn't work for ninja's too.


TLDR

I honestly have no idea what I suggest, I'm just pitching in because like as a builder I feel that guidelines for certain difficulties could be alot more helpfull than rating tracks post-publishing. If you go with statistics based on how people performed on the tracks, when people improve over time, ninja's willl once again be tagged easier than they really are. Wich was the problem in the first place, that's why it should be taken as a guideline to make a better system, if that's even possible.


PS

I still like the idea RL proposed to start tagging ninja's with the ingame difficulties, rather than levels. It would make everything more in line with what's officially in the game and makes more sense for me at least (maybe makes it easier for RL to officially implement ninja's in a new trials game). It is also a good option to cap ninja levels, if people start making even harder tracks (if that's even possible), it could open up a whole new area to explore instead of having to call them ninja level 7...8...9, it could introduce a whole new category and maybe stabelise difficulty ratings (not tagging them easier than they really are because people get better). Dibs on calling it the "samurai" category



PS*

And while I think about it, I read something in the thread about that it is not good to compare tracks over all difficulties (or compare them at all). But, imo, the only statistical system that is interesting is comparing all tracks over all (nina) difficulties. Because when the ninja community improves as a whole the statistics would still be the same compared to each other. The easy ninja's would still be at the bottom and the harder ones on top. If you would rate them seperatly by points, their stats would drop and harder tracks would fall into easier categories again just because the skill level went up. And I just realise this kinda negates the problem I had with the statistics system, I guess my main gripe with it is that it's post-publishing. I would rather see some pre-publishing guidelines, but from what I can tell, the most beneficial system would be to have both systems, since they seem to be complementary to a certain degree.

[Smilies2019]

i totaly agree with you IImayneII
people are getting better so tracks wil be easier.
Example inferno 4(NJ) was a level 4 now a level 3 and only because people getting better or grind until they got lower faults
So yes...an extreme is an exteme...but if u compare all extremes in the basic ( No dlc) they are getting harder and harder
But its stil extreme, while 1 year ago extreme inferno 4 was called a ninja level 1.

I think this discussion is taking way to long and should just be stopped.
Call them ninja and xplatform them