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 Aggregate of fastest times each day 
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Posted on: Sat Oct 08, 2016 1:59 am




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Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:22 am
 Aggregate of fastest times each day
In the timed puzzle section we have the 100m dash (4x4), the 200m sprint (5x5), the 400m (6x6) and the middle distance 800m (8x8).... Would a category work where user's fastest time for the day for each event are combined in a sort of decathlon for timed puzzles? Might favor 8x8 too heavily but I still like the idea. Doesn't need to have points associated with it, just another thing for the timed puzzlers to work on improving!


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Posted on: Sat Oct 08, 2016 11:45 am




Posts: 3296
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Aggregate of fastest times each day
herc wrote:
In the timed puzzle section we have the 100m dash (4x4), the 200m sprint (5x5), the 400m (6x6) and the middle distance 800m (8x8).... Would a category work where user's fastest time for the day for each event are combined in a sort of decathlon for timed puzzles? Might favor 8x8 too heavily but I still like the idea. Doesn't need to have points associated with it, just another thing for the timed puzzlers to work on improving!


Thanks, interesting idea.

Maybe an average of the "time per cell", like:

((t4 / 16) + (t5 / 25) + (t6 / 36) + (t8 / 64)) / 4

?

Patrick


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Posted on: Sat Oct 08, 2016 2:30 pm




Posts: 158
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 10:28 pm
Post Re: Aggregate of fastest times each day
In my my experience, the following ratios would be best:
Say the 8 by 8 counts once, then
6x6: 4 times
5x5: 8 times
4x4: 20 times

(this is based on the times I tend to find decent for the different puzzles: 120 seconds for 8x8, 30 for 6x6, 15 for 5x5 and 6 for 4x4)


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Posted on: Sat Oct 08, 2016 5:37 pm




Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2014 4:41 am
Post Re: Aggregate of fastest times each day
I really like the idea - as somebody who rather enjoys the challenge of the timed puzzles, it would add to that. If it was calculated using ratios, the numbers jpoos put up seem relatively close to what the ratios seem to be from looking at the top scores. For example, the ratio of best scores of the top 50 for 4x4/5x5/6x6/8x8 is 1.0/2.6/5.4/26.5 - though the top 8 is a bit harder to assess since it includes only subscribers.

The big challenge I see with ratios is the effect of a small change. If the 4x4 is given 20 times the weight of an 8x8 puzzle, then it is far more likely the day's results will be determined by who gets a good (or lucky) 4x4 score since a 1 second change on the 4x4 is equivalent to a 20 second change in the 8x8. A 1s change on a smaller puzzle should be scored better than on a big puzzle, but I would also say a 1% change on a smaller puzzle should have less effect than on a larger puzzle.

Thinking on the original comparison to the decathlon, I looked up how the decathlon is actually scored: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decathlon#Points_system

Quote:
Points = INT(A(B — P)^C)


A, B, and C are parameters for the event and P is the athlete's score for the event. The parameters are presumably defined to roughly equate the events and the range of abilities seen in the field. Potentially, historical timed puzzle data could be used to calculate appropriate values of A, B, and C to equalize performance across the 4 events (the calcudoku quadrathlon?) There could also be a triathlon version for non-subscribers.

It might also be interesting to have one-day, one-week, and one-month events. Especially with the 8x8 only having one per day, this might smooth out the chance of one bad day (or, add a 2nd 8x8 for sucscribers.)


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Posted on: Sun Oct 09, 2016 12:42 am




Posts: 956
Location: Ukraine
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 10:03 pm
Post Re: Aggregate of fastest times each day
How about using the product (or geometric mean) rather than the sum (or arithmetic mean)?


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Posted on: Thu Oct 20, 2016 2:49 am




Posts: 61
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:21 am
Post Re: Aggregate of fastest times each day
I love the concept but how about putting everyone on an even keel as an old, fat fingered slow typer like myself can't hope to compete with the speed demons we have on this site. Something like in Golf where everyone has a handicap (could be your average timed score) & you then not only compete against yourself (try to beat your handicap time) as well as compete against everyone else as your final score would be either a + or - score based on your time against your handicap time.


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Posted on: Thu Oct 20, 2016 4:10 pm




Posts: 158
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 10:28 pm
Post Re: Aggregate of fastest times each day
ineedaname wrote:
I love the concept but how about putting everyone on an even keel as an old, fat fingered slow typer like myself can't hope to compete with the speed demons we have on this site. Something like in Golf where everyone has a handicap (could be your average timed score) & you then not only compete against yourself (try to beat your handicap time) as well as compete against everyone else as your final score would be either a + or - score based on your time against your handicap time.


Maybe if you divide your best time of the day on a certain size by your 'Average of 65%/100 best times' of that size, you'd get a good value for comparison to others.
You could then add those values up in some ratio (like the ones I mentioned before). That might be an interesting ranking.


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