Spelunky News!

 A handful of fun Mossranking changes, explained.

Posted by Kinnijup on August 22nd, 2016 @02:53PM

Hey gang, Kinnijup here. It has been some months since we discussed possible changes to the ranking formula or the site in general. Some of us got together and discussed some changes and, from also discussing with many of the active runners, came to a consensus that these changes would improve the quality of the site, and the enjoyment players get out of it. Here is a list of those changes.

 

1) Perhaps the most noticeable change is we moved daily average to the pool of challenge runs, instead of making it mandatory. It is important to note this is not meant to be disrespectful to the category or view it as less important. Afterall, players like me and d_tea are finding it difficult to get to the top here. It just tends to take the longest time to get a good ranking in this, and as a result several players have mentioned to me they are demotivated. Especially a player who does not like score runs, as 10 complete score runs can sound like a monumental task (and honestly kind of is). There are even more players who like score runs, but did not want to have to complete 10 comparatively nice ones to match the rank they hold in other categories. So this was mostly a change to appeal to speedrunners. However, there is a nice change for score runners which I'll go over next.

 

2) Daily highscore was moved to the pool of challenge runs instead of counting for your regular score run. This change might seem negative for you if you are using a daily highscore as your score PB. However, you now have the option of using an additional score run for your overall points. This change has made it possible for someone who prefers speedruns to have as little as 1/9 score categories, or someone who likes score runs to have as many as 3. Before this and the daily average change, a player was always using 2/9. There are a couple of players who don't have a regular score run submited, so they will initially lose some points overall. However, I can guarantee that if you are in this position, you will be able to get a score similar to the daily high score you were using, without much difficulty or grinding. If you got a 1 million daily, you can get a 1 million score run on your first seed with a jetpack in the mines. Feel free to come to me for help, and I would even be willing to help you in a stream you do. Think of it like this: it will be way easier to finish 1 solid score run than it would be to finish 10 (for daily average). This change is just going to be very beneficial for the site and score runners in general, so I feel it is an important one to make.

 

3) No Teleporter Any% was added to the pool of challenge runs a player can use for points. This category used to be popular and asked about sometimes on the reddit by newer (not necessarily slower) players. The idea behind this change is it allows a fun use for seeds that don't have a teleporter, and will be easier for mid-ranked players to get a high rank in compared to, say, Low% Hell or eggplant speedruns. This category is the most popular category that does not influence points, and has almost as many submissions as some of the points categories. So players independently have shown interest in it. It is also a throwback/nod to the OG Spelunky, in which the teleporter was not a good item for Any%. We are also giving every player a default run in this category, their Low% time, so as to not enforce a penalty on anyone.

 

4) 10 categories now count for your overall rank instead of 9. This will consist of score + any% + low% + hell% + your highest 6 challenge runs. This might sound like a lot, but it really is not a big change. Consider this: substituting a run for daily average makes us have 5 instead of 4 optional categories already, so making the move to 6 is not a big deal. It will be your 6th best ranked run, basically. Daily highscore and no teleporter any% are now options and possible to get high ranks on for someone good at score or someone good at speed, so I am confident if you like the website you will have no problem with this change. Lastly, it will make it much easier to calculate or get a rough estimate of what a possible PB will do to your score if we use 10 total instead of 9.

 

We are also working on some color/name/ranking icons for certain scores (like 500 to 550k, 550k to 600k, etc). These will be in place sometime in the near future, hopefully. They will be a lot of fun 

 

The thinking behind these changes was to make the ranking more fun and appealing to a wider range of players. Feel free to voice your opinion to me (Kinnijup), saturnin55, krille71, or really anyone (the site is a community project, with the majority of the work being put in by saturnin55) in discord or PM, and don't be afraid to let us know about negatives of the changes if you would like to.

 

:D,

 

Kinni