Scores and Stuff
For starters : Frantic 2 will be released Thursday 27th August!
Ok now to the problem Im facing. Initially I thought it was impossible to get the score beyond the point where the numbers in flash are forced into negatives, or back around to zero. I decided to go into the game and try my hardest to ‘abuse’ the scoreing mechanisms, by farming bullet scrapes/grazing, killing all enemies at as close range as possible, and focusing all my shop purchases on things that would make this more efficient. So one example is not using wingmen and having it so I can kill selectivly, making sure I always have bullets around to increase my multiplier.
I wasnt skilled enough to really push the multiplier to its potential in the normal modes, but I got it to around 140 before I managed to get myself hit. I tried the same thing in Endurance mode and it got to around 300-400 a few times after getting hit, but it took about 4 levels to get it that high. This suggests a very very skilled player could get the multiplier high enough to break the highscores.
The scoring system iteself is very balanced, and it is actually as low as it will go, for example scraping a bullet will give you 1 point, killing an enemy say 400, a boss 4000, etc.. if I lower these scores the game will give no reason to actually kill enemies, as scraping bullets itself would be profitable enough to not even bother with enemies, and bosses would just be roadblocks to get to more bullets. I cant limit the multiplier as skilled players would not be rewarded, and highscores would plateau.
So what to do! My current and only solution would be to have a counter, once it counts to say 100, the actual score is increased by 1(c-=100; s++;), effectivly dividing the score by 100 and making it impossible to get game breaking score. The downside to this is now players wont get ridiculous highscores on average. From testing it seems players get between 50-200 million points on a first attempt. This would now be a boring 0.5-2 million, 2 million being more rare than those around 0.5. But this would convert a v.v.high 10,000,000,000(breaks scoreboard) into a 100,000,000(fine).
Is there a better solution? I really dont want to have to make the scores boring and low, pfft, who wants a tiny 0.5 million score!
August 21st, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Hooray for release dates! What sponsor did you get?
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:43 am
HOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY says Cagaroth.
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:56 am
Regarding the score, it’s all about presentation. If you make a ‘high’ score say FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND, it doesn’t sound so bad. When it’s put as “0.5 million”, it’s not as … exciting? That zero really is a killer.
Scores, by nature, are relative. An advantage of lower scores is that it’s easier on the brain to compare a good player with a poor or average one. Star Fox 64, for example, scored things called ‘hits’ or kills, which good or excellent players could ramp up with charged shots. It was simple to tell the difference between a good and a great player, because someone with 325 hits was far above one with 200. When scores have strings of zeros attached, people simply see it as a generic big number. Just something to think about.
One consequence of your rolling multiplier is that an error is extremely difficult to overcome. While challenge is VERY important in this genre of game, allowing this kind of permanent multiplyer shoots the cost of entry for high level play through the roof.
Forgive my rambling. I loved your first Frantic, and I am eagerly awaiting the second! Most importantly: Congratulations on your sponsor!
-j
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:58 am
I guess I should have clarified that I haven’t seen the game yet, and have no idea how the scoring mechanism actually works. Like I said - please forgive my rambling
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:47 am
There’s not a way to preserve the modest scores but just multiply them by 25 or something while displaying them?
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:51 am
YAY! I have a few things to say…
1. I’m sorry polymer and anyone else i might have said anything bad about.
2. I am FlyWithMe, i just wanted you to take me seriously
3.I really didn’t understand anything you said in this post, mainly because i dont really care about highscores.
4. And finally, YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FINALLY A RELEASE DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I know what you mean about presentation, I think the whole ‘I got 909,392,398 POINTS?!?!’ thing is quite important in these games, I feel like its a sort of tradition. The main problem is with the multiplier getting high at a very fast rate for skilled players.
From much playing I think the multiplier gain speed is perfect. I guess divinding the score by 100 is probably the best way forward. 500,000 isnt so bad, I could actually increase the initial score by a few million just to give a ‘base’ score somehow, like having the first boss give a bonus of 2 million points - as carl suggested, at the lower end of the scoring scale the differences wont matter as much, as 10x extra multiplier will probably add a million anyway, a 100x extra will make a million seem insignificant.
Dont worry about it matter, I can undertand you getting impatiant and I appreciate that you appologised :).
August 25th, 2009 at 7:16 am
Yay! I’ll be definitely be playing it on release day!
August 25th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
The scoring system is now fixed, its actually within a reasonable range if the score is only divided by 10. This means and average score is 5million - 20 million. A high score is anything greater than 100m, with a potential of up to about a billion.
August 27th, 2009 at 7:10 am
Is it gonna be a midnight release polymer? tat would be something to look forward to.
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:(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry bout that im a bit excited.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
im waiting for the game. 3:09 am, Argentina. Congratz
August 27th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
I cant wait for this, I hope what you said stays true and it will come out later today.
This is the only game I have actually looked around for before it came out and looking at the videos it looks challenging, I will have to see if I can “break the highscores”. =P
August 27th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Just played Episode 1, and I’m about 5min into episode 2 but I just had to pause it to say that you’ve done a really great job. This might be the best flash-based shooter I’ve ever played.
August 27th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
what Joe? Is it out??
Or are you a beta tester?
August 27th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
August 27th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I must have found it just as it went up. But there’s the post about it now.
August 30th, 2009 at 6:06 am
If you wanna keep the same high score but not have the score wrap around to 0 when it gets too high, just split the score up into 2 variables instead of 1. For example, you could have 2 score vals, score1 and score2. Score 1 is for scores under a million. Whenever score1 goes over a million, you increment score2 by 1 and subract score1 by 1 million. That way score2 keeps track of how many millions the player has and score1 keeps track of the other digits. That way you don’t have to compromise your score, but it’s pretty much impossible to break your game.
September 1st, 2009 at 11:23 am
I enjoyed playing the game on frantic, but tbh I found it too easy… of course I’m used to 1-hit kills, major penalties on death, and rediculous bullet patterns from touhou games. Maybe make a super impossible version which plays like a touhou game?
But I’m nit-picking. It plays very well and I very much enjoyed it. Keep up the good work!
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:14 pm
hi
with the high scores why not use two vars instead of one, that is:
make the high score as:
[var1,var2]
once var2 exceeds some limit, increment var1
this way it’s impossible to beat the scoring limit
i dunno if flash has any bignum libs to ease your job
btw awesome game!
spent hours playing it
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Thanks ! I already used a ticker that counts the score up every 10 points, it actually works out fine at only 1 point per 10 points. Although if larger points are awarded in a single frame then its has to divide by 10, round of, subtract by *10, etc lol.