Another future idea :)

At the moment, there is a big exponent at the top of each ranking- especially silver-gold. (hardware- 25%, global- ~34%)

What if there was a smaller (default) points difference between silver and gold, UNLESS the #1 score was x% higher than silver? ie... bigger lead = a few more points.

It should prevent sandbagging to some extent and it might help encourage people who think gold is beyond their skills/hardware to push hard for a strong silver because it will take some points away from the guy in 1st place.

Farily good idea

I suggested this, but there is a valid problem: outliers. In a ranking with one chip ran at stock, and one overclocked 100% - there will be rewarded an insane amount of points for no reason.

What if it was limited to popular categories (gold = 40 points or more) ?

I wasn't thinking of making the categories worth *more* points, the same points as now are only awarded for big leads.

ie..... a 2point gold is only worth 2 points if it's done with a big lead (whatever % is decided)

Popular ones could work, categories with 100 subs or more should be enough. Then you don't really have the problem with outliers anymore. Perhaps you can even "ignore" the ranking when calculating the boints then, award cups by ranking, but points by score relative to the average one, independent of the actual rank (for example two people get 10.000s in 1m in a popullar category, one is 1st because he submits first. He gets a gold cup, the other one a silver cup, but they get the same amount of points as relative to the average score they're equally good).

Nice idea, but a pain to implement and finetune.

I think the effort/time needed to implement this does not outweigh the benefits of this, to be honest. It makes the whole system also even less transparent than it already is. The points will never be perfect (even with this new rule), so the question is how much better it would be with this update compared to the effort it takes to implement.

I suggested this, but there is a valid problem: outliers. In a ranking with one chip ran at stock, and one overclocked 100% - there will be rewarded an insane amount of points for no reason.

and what if the first spot in a ranking gets the same as it would get now, i.e 5pts in a less popular category and 49.9 in a popular one.

What will change will be the points awarded from 2nd position down: if the first score is, for example, 10% (or more) better than the second, the first remains at 49.9, the second gets instead of 35pts, maybe let's say 32,5pts which is a 10% less. The third, fourth etc will have the same treatment.. -10% in points.

That way, the first will not get insane amount of pts, but we'll get a reward for the first, in the measure that the others get less pts.

Is it still a PITA to implement, Pieter?

I like the idea, but could see it being harder to finetune.

I also think the current point system does something very interesting and important to the hwbot "magic". By artificially making the point reward very drastic between 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th... It is VERY motivating if you are in the top 5.

The way this plays out... if you are currently scoring 20th in a ranking, it isn't hard to tweak a couple settings and move up a few spots (low difficulty), but it doesn't get you many extra points. However if you are currently scoring 5th in a ranking, it can be very hard to tweak settings and move up one or two spots (high difficulty), but if you can move up those couple extra spots you get a lot of extra points.

I'd be willing to bet that more hardware dies in the top 5 of the rankings due to the way the current point system works, and I kinda like that. (I'm not going to kill a card to get 15th place, I'll let it live and rerun when the next generation CPU comes out... But in the top 5, I'm going to kill that sucker and worry about finding another when I need it down the road)

and what if the first spot in a ranking gets the same as it would get now, i.e 5pts in a less popular category and 49.9 in a popular one.

What will change will be the points awarded from 2nd position down: if the first score is, for example, 10% (or more) better than the second, the first remains at 49.9, the second gets instead of 35pts, maybe let's say 32,5pts which is a 10% less. The third, fourth etc will have the same treatment.. -10% in points.

That way, the first will not get insane amount of pts, but we'll get a reward for the first, in the measure that the others get less pts.

Is it still a PITA to implement, Pieter?

I'd rather go the other way. Personally, I don't think many scores between silver and gold are worth a 25% difference in points. I'd rather see gold worth less (hence my idea in the original post) unless they really ARE good scores, OR.... all the other scores are worth more.

The idea of a big lead = "more" points just so happens to have an effect on the point of sandbagging