Rarity Leaderboard

[AlphaTrash]

Just now, mekktor said:

 

I think you're putting to much importance on the words "Ultra Rare". There is very little difference between a 4.9% trophy and a 5.1% trophy - one just crossed some arbitrary percentage and got a new rarity name, that's all. But whatever, it's not up to me to tell you how to do your trophy hunting.

I agree, truth be told I do not really value trophies about 2.5%. But UR is the rarest category there is, so I care about that. I would love a category for 1% and below tbh. 

[Potent_Delusions]

Would be a fantastic idea. I'm not in the slightest bothered by how many trophies I have personally, however....I'd be more than interested in competing on a rarity LB. Excellent idea OP.

 

EDIT: I also very much echo the sentiments of a few others in here; trophies that are not even ultra rare should give little to no credit as to deter #1s who are there purely from quantity and not quality. The exponential scale seems a good fit. 

Edited April 14, 2017 by Potent_Delusions

[dmsleight]

With certain games/trophies being highly valued, there will also be an increased interest in obtaining those trophies, so the rarity will get offset (depending on the number of owners, it might make very little difference though).  Games also self correct over time too.  The number of owners will trickle and then completion percentages will rise too.  In most cases, the difference for either scenario is likely not a large factor, but it is something to keep in mind.  Then again, maybe I'm wrong and people really buy into the rarity leaderboard and really go after the really rare trophies and they become noticeably less rare.

 

Out of curiosity, is the idea to have ranges? e.g. 45%-%50 = 1, and .10-.19%= 500 etc, or will the rarity points be fluctuating with every new game owner and trophy obtained?  Or maybe the idea is to round points?  Take the chart above:

 

On 4/11/2017 at 3:34 PM, NathanielJohn said:

 

 

50	1.00
40	1.25
30	1.67

 

50-~45%=1pts and 46-~32%=2pts.  Even if that is done, it will have little effect regardless of the scale.

 

Of course this is a pretty fine point that is a future issue really.

Edited April 14, 2017 by dmsleight
I keep posting not realizing that I am not on the last page! Ignore this

[starcrunch061]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Most people ignoring the people who complain about DLC rarity and most people ignore the UR hunters, hence why there's no leaderboards for them. 

I don't see the problem with more leaderboards. 

 

 

OK. Like I said, I hope you get what you want. I personally like UR trophies as well (and have quite a few). I personally don't like the idea of more leaderboards. And yeah - while it's true that I can simply ignore the threads, I can also complain about them. That's hardly a ridiculous stance.

 

I will mention one thing, though - I do dislike, from the core of my trophy hunting being, anything that depends only on "average rarity". I don't like anything that punishes people for playing more games. 

26 minutes ago, dmsleight said:

With certain games/trophies being highly valued, there will also be an increased interest in obtaining those trophies, so the rarity will get offset (depending on the number of owners, it might make very little difference though).  Games also self correct over time too.  The number of owners will trickle and then completion percentages will rise too.  In most cases, the difference for either scenario is likely not a large factor, but it is something to keep in mind.  Then again, maybe I'm wrong and people really buy into the rarity leaderboard and really go after the really rare trophies and they become noticeably less rare.

 

I actually think that would be a great thing, and one of the positives to creating this leaderboard.

 

But it probably won't happen, because in the end, I don't think there's terrible interest in a leaderboard based on a UR designation that only uses people on the site (and I'm not sure anyone wants one with PSN rarity, since it is so wonky for many PS3 games). However, another positive might be that such a leaderboard would make it easier to find potential cheaters.

Edited April 14, 2017 by starcrunch061

[AlcoholicDinosaw]

Maybe there could be sub-categories on the leaderboard, of course having the leaderboard we got now as the one that'll always be there when you click on the "Leaderboard" tab, but there could be a way to view a leaderboard for overall rarity, which is what this thread is about, but then can split up each individual rarity into its own leaderboard  such as "Common", "Uncommon", "Rare", "Very Rare" & "Ultra Rare", or just the last two, or one, whatever people like more or prefer, so they can compete and get to a higher place with what ever rarity they want to earn lots of, I understand that is a lot of formula working and maths thinking that's required and a simple being like me wouldn't know how to do so easily. 

 

Point is, is that this is just a suggestion, and I want it to be so everyone is happy and have their own preferences with it, I know it may sound a little barbaric to read but I care about what others want and being just a member the most I can do is write a suggestion, if more agree with me I'll happily help work out formulas and stuff to submit, but it seems this way more people get what they want with a little less disagreeing as there are more options available so if you don't like it you don't have to click on it but if you do then it's there for you

[Zenodin]

@AlcoholicDinosaw, ... what about some kind of 'ratio' ... ? I mentioned it earlier (but got no feedback). 

 

As it shows, depending on the points scaling, players with a load of common/rare trophies will lead the leaderboards ... and players with 'a bunch'of UR trophies (what this leaderboard is mostly for), but less of the other trophies, ... will stay behind.

 

Players with less gaming time will almost always stay behind. Whether it be the normal leaderboard or the rarity leaderboard. That's why I wanted to find something so that hunters with less gaming time could compete against all others, ... including the ones that could play 24/7 as a manner of speech. 

 

With this 'ratio' I was aiming for something like total Rarity Points divided by your total amount of trophies. 

 

For me it would be:

75,806.70 / 3,994 = 18.98 Rarity Ratio

 

The closer it goes to 1, the more common your trophies overall are. The higher up, the rarer your trophies overall are.

 

Why did I come up with this? I for one have limited gaming time ... and during that time I mostly love to go specifically for those UR ones. With this Rarity Ratio, I would still be able to somehow 'compete' with/against other rare trophy hunters. 

 

Again this could be discussed through and through ... Just asking for general thoughts here ...

Edited April 14, 2017 by Zenodin

[AlcoholicDinosaw]

11 minutes ago, Zenodin said:

@AlcoholicDinosaw, ... what about some kind of 'ratio' ... ? I mentioned it earlier (but got no feedback). 

I really like and agree with your suggestion, I think that'd be brilliant, I too have limited game time and prefer to collect the rarer trophies, not necessarily UR, but still, I really like your suggestion I do not know how I managed to read past it, your one needs to be more recognised I'd like to see this happen!

[Danny_Johansen]

@Zenodin

More leaderboards are always welcome, but what if someone just creates a new account and only plays SMB. He will be pretty much on top for playing 1 challenging game. And how will it work for games that have mostly common trophies followed by 1 hard as nails UR trophy. High chances are that it will reduce your ratio.

[Zenodin]

6 minutes ago, Danny_Johansen said:

@Zenodin

More leaderboards are always welcome, but what if someone just creates a new account and only plays SMB. He will be pretty much on top for playing 1 challenging game. And how will it work for games that have mostly common trophies followed by 1 hard as nails UR trophy. High chances are that it will reduce your ratio.

 

There are work-arounds ... That's true. It's just an idea to start with.  Then it could be up to the 'host' to make a specific set of rules to try and avoid such things. For example: you're on the leaderboard if you're account holds at least 10 started games. 

 

As for the games containing partial common trophies, partial UR trophies. Well, ... that's a part of the challenge, I think. If you want to get a high Rarity Ratio, you go for games with lesser common, more rare or exclusively rare trophies ...

[dmland12]

2 hours ago, starcrunch061 said:

I will mention one thing, though - I do dislike, from the core of my trophy hunting being, anything that depends only on "average rarity". I don't like anything that punishes people for playing more games. 

 

Absolutely agree.  I'm someone who typically looks for more difficult games so this sort of thing would probably benefit me... but it's still nonsense.  Why should someone who has the same trophies I have, but also has more common ones I don't have be ranked below me?  We did the same stuff.  It makes no sense at all.

 

Thankfully, it doesn't look like sly wants to go this direction.  It's really surprising to me that anyone actually does, though.  

[Lithium_Lemon]

I also do not like the ratio idea because it has too many downsides and is way too exploitable. Assigning rarity points for each trophy and summing the total is much more desirable. There is no way to exploit that system. Even if you don't play a lot you can still climb your way up the rarity leaderboard if you want to. For example, another site which implements this type of rarity calculation has me listed at almost 30,000 on the standard leaderboard but 600 on the rarity leaderboard and I have only played 90 games, so it is definitely possible. 

[Zenodin]

9 minutes ago, Lithium_Lemon said:

I also do not like the ratio idea because it has too many downsides and is way too exploitable. Assigning rarity points for each trophy and summing the total is much more desirable. There is no way to exploit that system. Even if you don't play a lot you can still climb your way up the rarity leaderboard if you want to. For example, another site which implements this type of rarity calculation has me listed at almost 30,000 on the standard leaderboard but 600 on the rarity leaderboard and I have only played 90 games, so it is definitely possible. 

 

Just say PSNTL ...

I played 115 games; ranked standard around 37k and just under 590 on the rarity leaderboard. 

 

If, ... and I stress 'if', people like the idea, it could be as good a leaderboard as any other. 

 

It's not because a certain amount of players don't like a leaderboard, it couldn't be a good (objective) leaderboard. 

 

And again ... abuse/work-arounds are almost unavoidable, ... but just as in the standard leaderboard it's up to the leader to pull those people out of the leaderboard and/or set up a specific set of rules so that those who want to be on that leaderboard (or even care about it) walk between those lines. 

[Lithium_Lemon]

1 hour ago, Zenodin said:

 

Just say PSNTL ...

I played 115 games; ranked standard around 37k and just under 590 on the rarity leaderboard. 

 

If, ... and I stress 'if', people like the idea, it could be as good a leaderboard as any other. 

 

It's not because a certain amount of players don't like a leaderboard, it couldn't be a good (objective) leaderboard. 

 

And again ... abuse/work-arounds are almost unavoidable, ... but just as in the standard leaderboard it's up to the leader to pull those people out of the leaderboard and/or set up a specific set of rules so that those who want to be on that leaderboard (or even care about it) walk between those lines. 

I'm not ragging on your idea I just don't think it would work well, especially with a 10 game limit. I mean think about it, you platinum Endwar, Injustice: Gods Among Us (x4), Super Meat Boy, I Am Bread, Surgeon Simulator, plus a few more rare games and there you go, an unbreakable leaderboard record; at least for a significant period of time before more super ultra rare 0.09% platinum trophies are released (Which is never). Additionally, those at the top would not even play any other rare or common games, because if the overall completion for that games is >1% then their ratio will go down. It would have people waiting for months/years just to see where the percentage would plateau so the knew if they should add it to their profiles or not. 

Edited April 14, 2017 by Lithium_Lemon

[AlphaTrash]

3 hours ago, dmland12 said:

 

Absolutely agree.  I'm someone who typically looks for more difficult games so this sort of thing would probably benefit me... but it's still nonsense.  Why should someone who has the same trophies I have, but also has more common ones I don't have be ranked below me?  We did the same stuff.  It makes no sense at all.

 

Thankfully, it doesn't look like sly wants to go this direction.  It's really surprising to me that anyone actually does, though.  

"why should someone who has the same trophies I have, but also has more common ones I don't have be ranked below me?  We did the same stuff.  It makes no sense at all."

It's an average rarity leaderboard, that's why... fucking hell lmao. 

Some people work hard/avoid fun shit to keep theirs low. My average rarity is horrendous, doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested in who has the lowest average rarity and so on. 

"We did all the same stuff" No you didn't, you just said this hypothetical person played more games than you and got more commons, thus suffering the consequences of doing easier games. 

 

I really don't understand why people are so anti leaderboards here haha, think of the children!

'Some people would get upset because they place like shit on certain leaderboards... lets not have those leaderboards.'

 

What the fuck is going on? 

 

It doesn't even punish people for playing more games. It punishes people for playing easier games. The regular leaderboard rewards them for playing easier games though. 

You could make the argument that the regular leaderboard punishes people who do hard games, as they take longer. 

Why waste 60 hours on smb to move 80 places up the LB when you could get 24 platinums in that time and 800 trophies and move up 1000 places on the LB?

You SHOULDN'T BE PUNISHED for playing hard games bro! You shouldn't be punished for your own personal choices. 

Gross. 

 

On a side note, you have an extremely good average rarity. Well done. 

Edited April 14, 2017 by Jeff

[dmland12]

28 minutes ago, Jeff said:

"why should someone who has the same trophies I have, but also has more common ones I don't have be ranked below me?  We did the same stuff.  It makes no sense at all."

It's an average rarity leaderboard, that's why... fucking hell lmao. 

Some people work hard/avoid fun shit to keep theirs low. My average rarity is horrendous, doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested in who has the lowest average rarity and so on. 

"We did all the same stuff" No you didn't, you just said this hypothetical person played more games than you and got more commons, thus suffering the consequences of doing easier games. 

 

So... let's really drive the absurdity of this home, then.  Let's say these aren't two different people we're talking about, but just me trying to decide what I should do next.  Let's say that there's a new game out that has a lot of common trophies that I'd like to play, so I play it.  Did I suddenly get worse or deserve to be "punished" because I played it?

 

What if I play it anyway, but put it on another account instead.  I did the same exact thing as before but on two accounts.  This is basically just an accounting trick, but now, magically I no longer deserve any "punishment."

 

An average rarity leaderboard would say that yes in case #1 I will end ranked worse than in case #2, despite the fact that I played the exact same games: I just funneled the easier one to another account. This is why any leaderboard that's not going to rely on counting stats, but only on averages is going to fundamentally be absurd.

[daftprophet]

39 minutes ago, Jeff said:

It doesn't even punish people for playing more games. It punishes people for playing easier games. The regular leaderboard rewards them for playing easier games though. 

Well...

 

39 minutes ago, Jeff said:

You SHOULDN'T BE PUNISHED for playing hard games bro! You shouldn't be punished for your own personal choices. 

Gross. 

Hmmm.  We really shouldn't be punished at all for playing any games we enjoy. What if one of my favorite games is a bit easier than an "ultra rare", now I am punished?

 

What I don't get is you have people playing obscure, not necessarily hard games instead of enjoyable ones just because they "ultra rare".   This isn't always the case but it sure as hell happens often. 

 

Take AoT: Wings of Freedom. That game has been extemely enjoyable and is an ultra rare platinum with mostly common and uncommon trophies otherwise. This idea would steer people away from a potentially fun game because the rest of the trophies aren't rare.  

[ProfBambam55]

Bam is tired...doesn't understand why 1% should be 9000 times more than 50%...why not 90 000 times?....shouldn't 0.01% = either 0.01% or 99.99 pts (or equivalent) and 99.99% = 99.99% or 0.01 pts (or equivalent)...rare, common, etc are fictional boundaries, no?...so exhausted that none of this skewing/tweaking makes sense...sorry for posting...won't happen again...stumbled upon this earlier is all...numbers are simple and beautiful...ideology makes them complicated...gotta love 'em...

 

p.s. awake now...the idea of rarity ratio is about the only objective leaderboard mathematically I can see...add up all rarity % as is or opposite equivalent and divide by number of trophies...makes everyone equal per se regardless of trophy count or activity...this is basically just making a leaderboard with the average rarity stat that already exists though...

 

let's make a banal comparison to another gaming stat...kill/death ratio...let's make a leaderboard...first, we should have a category called "noob" which is 0.2 and beyond and not count their kills for anything...why 0.2?...i just told you i created a category called "noob", should be obvious, no?...then we start at 1.0, called "average killer" and start doubling and naming the worth of your kills for every point you go up to a max of 5...5 will be known as "master killer"...after master killer we will incrementally start awarding double points for every 0.1 increase in ratio but since we'll also be creating titles for these levels it makes sense...while we're at it let's remove anyone who hasn't played the game in a year even if they have 30 000 kills and a 5.8 ratio...oh, and the guy who played once, got 5 kills, 0 deaths and never played again...he doesn't count either...not fair to have him included...his friend who did the same and got 2 kills and 3 deaths, we could add him, he won't be at the top anyways...so yeah, the kills of the guy who got an average 0 kills and 4 deaths are worth 9000 times less than the guy who averaged 5.1 kills and 0 deaths...what?...is a kill not a kill?...

 

and what about "i have been playing this game legit for years...i've been working my a$$ off to be the biggest bada$$ and get my k/d ratio higher...this guy just played a lot for 6 months and quit out of every match where he didn't have a 5.0+ ratio...i don't want to be compared to him"...that's great but statiscally you will be in the same category...your total number of kills and k/d ratio will be very impressive and no doubt earn you praise and recognition but trying to tweak stats or quantify them in your favour just doesn't make sense mathematically...hopefully the above 2 paragraphs point at where this idea of rarity leaderboard is doomed to fail...

 

adding subjective boundaries like on psntl might please some statistically but they are not really logical...let's create more categories seems to be the idea...super rare, ultra rare, unique, exceptional,  etc...what is the gauge that gives them weight?...our opinion of how "difficult" they were?...why start at 5% and not 10% or 12% or even 20%?...

 

conclusion: a rarity leaderboard that shows ratio and total trophies (similar to k/d or most other leaderboards) is easily calculable and is objective...if two people have a 3.0 average then the one with more trophies would be higher regardless of "value" of trophies...you can add other interesting stats like number of platinums, trophies below 5%, and this will just be interesting to display much like k/d leaderboards that show number of headshots, but will not bear much relevance to the basic meaning of the numbers...this leaderboard seems like another idea that will inevitably always yield debatable stats...all i got...staying out of it...

Edited April 15, 2017 by ProfBambam55
90 hour work week...

[AlphaTrash]

6 hours ago, dmland12 said:

 

So... let's really drive the absurdity of this home, then.  Let's say these aren't two different people we're talking about, but just me trying to decide what I should do next.  Let's say that there's a new game out that has a lot of common trophies that I'd like to play, so I play it.  Did I suddenly get worse or deserve to be "punished" because I played it?

 

What if I play it anyway, but put it on another account instead.  I did the same exact thing as before but on two accounts.  This is basically just an accounting trick, but now, magically I no longer deserve any "punishment."

 

An average rarity leaderboard would say that yes in case #1 I will end ranked worse than in case #2, despite the fact that I played the exact same games: I just funneled the easier one to another account. This is why any leaderboard that's not going to rely on counting stats, but only on averages is going to fundamentally be absurd.

 

5 hours ago, daftprophet said:

Well...

 

Hmmm.  We really shouldn't be punished at all for playing any games we enjoy. What if one of my favorite games is a bit easier than an "ultra rare", now I am punished?

 

What I don't get is you have people playing obscure, not necessarily hard games instead of enjoyable ones just because they "ultra rare".   This isn't always the case but it sure as hell happens often. 

 

Take AoT: Wings of Freedom. That game has been extemely enjoyable and is an ultra rare platinum with mostly common and uncommon trophies otherwise. This idea would steer people away from a potentially fun game because the rest of the trophies aren't rare.  

 

You're both saying you're being "punished", all that is happening is you're moving down on a leaderboard you're probably not going to pay attention to.

Getting quite sick of the stupidity tbh, no one is being punished, it's one obscure stat and leaderboard on a trophy site that no one is forcing you to pay attention to.

I'm working on getting my AR down, so I'd be moving up the leaderboard and I'd have fun doing so, but we shouldn't have the LB because some people can't handle it.

Feelsgoodman.

[Zenodin]

@daftprophet, @dmland12, @Jeff, ...

 

When it comes down to a 'ratio' or a leaderboard based on an average, it's your own choice to be up high on that leaderboard or not. 

 

If you don't care about the average leaderboard and play fun/easier games (instead of stressing out on harder games) ... well then ... that's absolutely fine. If you just care about the total rarity points ... that's cool too. Why ... ? Because you don't care about an average leaderboard ...

 

If you do care about a leaderboard based on average points, you decide for yourself what you want to do. 'Do you play them on 1 account or do I make a 2nd one ... ? Oh, ... I want to be up high so I'll make a 2nd one and play hard games exclusively ... ' As long as there is minimum number amount of games needed to be started to be qualified for a spot on an average leaderboard, ... that's all ok. After all if you play those hard games and earn those rare trophies, why wouldn't you deserve to be placed high on that leaderboard. 

 

Speaking for myself ... I like rare trophies and would be very interested in seeing an added leaderboard with average values. Will I start up a 2nd account for it? No, I won't. I like my current account too much to start up a 2nd account. I play hard/fun/easy games all together. And if I want to go up on the average leaderboard, then I just start a game with rare trophies ... That's the choice I make.

 

Ps: talking about SMB ... Those trophies are rare and I got a few bunch of them ... but don't forget to check out my Badland trophies.  Too bad the plat is unobtainable.  

[dmsleight]

@Jeff.  People follow leader boards be cause they are competitive.  If playing certain games hurts their standings, they will stay away from playing certain games.

 

On the other hand, if there were 2 leaderboards, one with average and the other without, then they could be less bothered by moving down one if they can focus on the other.

 

On a side note, I just want to say that some of the new features that have continued to be added after the update are nice.  Like selective quoting and @.  I am also looking forward to how this leaderboard ends up.  I am ranked 25,000 higher globally and 7,000 nationally.  BTW, I can only find that leaderboard from sly's link.  Is there a way to get to it otherwise?

[zajac9999]

1 hour ago, dmsleight said:

.On a side note, I just want to say that some of the new features that have continued to be added after the update are nice.  Like selective quoting and @.  I am also looking forward to how this leaderboard ends up.  I am ranked 25,000 higher globally and 7,000 nationally.  BTW, I can only find that leaderboard from sly's link.  Is there a way to get to it otherwise?

 

you can put " /rarity " at the end of the url for the current leaderboards. That's the way I do it, otherwise I don't know any other way other than the link on this thread.

 

Personally the reason I'm not a big fan of the rarity leaderboards is that there is a 'top score' that can be achieved that others can't beat. Most of the point of a leaderboard in my eyes is the point that you can strive to improve your standing, but with a ratio leaderboard some people would be literally unbeatable. On truetrophies there is a ratio leaderboard, a friend of mine has been top by miles for as long as I can remember because he played a load of rare games then decided he didn't like the name of the account and made a new one. The #1 position of a leaderboard shouldn't be an inactive account. 

 

Also I would disagree on the statement of 'more leaderboards' is always better. Again on truetrophies they provided a list of all the leaderboards you scored within the top 100 or 1000 or whatever it was. I was in literally hundreds of different leaderboards to say I was in the top 100 of some of the more niche genres because I'd done 60% of 1 game which fitted that genre throughout the year, at that point ... who cares? I didn't even bother looking through most of them as it was just too much info.

 

I just hope that a lot of this debate, which has recently mostly become people say that don't like an idea and not suggesting something better (myself included just now  ) doesn't delay the arrival of the rarity leaderboard being a proper thing on psnp with all the usual leaderboard functions etc. Again I want a 50/rarity or something similar. It's a rarity leaderboard, in my head it should be a leaderboard to highlight those people who aim mainly for rare trophies, not to highlight those people who have played a lot more than everyone else. The usual leaderboard can do that.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2017 by zajac9999
grammar

[Brightblade76]

Instead of more leaderboards, wouldn't it be possible to add some filters to the leaderboard display criteria and also be able to combine them? I mean, as a completionist I'd like to reorder players by overall completion percentage first and number of trophies. Same thing could be done with ultrarares. Just saying.

[NathanielJohn]

13 minutes ago, Brightblade76 said:

Instead of more leaderboards, wouldn't it be possible to add some filters to the leaderboard display criteria and also be able to combine them? I mean, as a completionist I'd like to reorder players by overall completion percentage first and number of trophies. Same thing could be done with ultrarares. Just saying.

 

Someone could correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the main hurdle to this is a technical one. You don't want to be sorting a table in a database with hundreds of thousands of rows every time someone changes a setting and reloads the page -- it's a very computationally expensive operation. Thus some pre-defined sorts are chosen ahead of time (e.g., highest trophy score) and indexes are created in the database to allow very quick sorting based on that particular parameter.

[Brightblade76]

32 minutes ago, NathanielJohn said:

 

Someone could correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the main hurdle to this is a technical one. You don't want to be sorting a table in a database with hundreds of thousands of rows every time someone changes a setting and reloads the page -- it's a very computationally expensive operation. Thus some pre-defined sorts are chosen ahead of time (e.g., highest trophy score) and indexes are created in the database to allow very quick sorting based on that particular parameter.

I know that PSNTL tries to implement this, but it miserably fails imho lol

Let's say you select the completist leaderboard and add the % filter, players with the same percentage are displayed in reverse alphabetical order wtf what's the point lol Things could be planned so that you don't have an excessive amount of display combinations, just combinations based on the most "prestigious" parameters, let's say ultra rares and trophy score, overall percentage and trophy score and such. But of course I don't know what kind of computational power would be required for that.

[yndajas]

Okay long post...

 

If it's going to be a rarity leaderboard then surely it should be directly measuring rarity? I believe inverse percentage is the most accurate and only direct way to represent sum rarity (rather than average rarity) in a points system: 99.99% = 0.01 points; 0.01% = 99.99 points. No need for any caps and all points are weighted according to actual rarity, as in the number of people who have achieved the trophy of those who have played the game. If the data is available, why distort away from it? Having said that, the quasi-logic (?) of "50 x rarer = 50 x more rarity points" as in the 50/rarity measure - whilst skewed and therefore distorting away from true rarity - has a nice feel to it. So I'd give that merit as an alternative.

 

The more complicated formulae are clever but they distort too far away from it being a rarity measure towards being a rarity hunting measure. No reason rarity hunting couldn't form a separate leaderboard, but I think the measure could be much simpler, e.g. number of ultra rares or uber rares if a <=1% category was created. Or slightly more complicated: number of rarest category, followed by number of second rarest category, followed by number of third rarest category and so on. I think finding a perfect solution for measuring something like rarity hunting is impossible, because what constitutes good/bad/worthless hunting and how that can best be measured is very subjective, as evidenced by the differences in opinion in this thread.

 

Regarding an average rarity measure, initially I liked the idea but I think  @starcrunch061 and @dmland12 make important points about not punishing people for playing more: an average would probably just end up revealing the people who actively avoid easy trophies. I'd guess that's too small a minority to warrant a dedicated leaderboard page unless dedicated leaderboards pages were to be proliferated, but I think a proliferation of leaderboards would create clutter: part of the beauty of this site is the lack of clutter, so it should be avoided. However, I think it's good for people - however much in the minority they may be in specific cases - to have the option of chasing the statistics that interest them and comparing themselves against everyone else. Policing the measures people use for their own hunting fun is pointless. So maybe a longer-term development could be custom leaderboards where you can create your own measure using any of the variables within the database? I'm guessing this would be a lot of work for @Sly Ripper though, and probably quite resource-intensive for the database/site?

 

One final thought/alternative suggestion along the lines of @Brightblade76's that incorporates much of the above and might make nearly everyone happy... a leaderboard with three measures: sum rarity (unweighted), sum rarity (weighted) and average rarity. By default it's ordered by sum rarity (unweighted) (or sum rarity (weighted) if people really prefer distortion...), but you can re-order it by clicking the other column headers. That way it accommodates many rarity hunting tastes. But again whether it would be too resource-intensive for the database/site, I don't know.

 

Whatever the end result(s), I think it would be good to have some explanation (outside the forums) of the calculation methods where they aren't obvious from the label alone. This thread highlights the differences in how people conceptualise statistics and how to measure them, if nothing else!

Edited April 18, 2017 by andylaw31
Typo; correct formula