How scoring works

[Fiskbit]

Before people ask, I figure I should give an explanation of how scoring works (though it appears to be a bit buggy at the time of writing this).

At this time, scoring is supposed to work by making each block worth some amount of points equal to the last block in the reaction + 10, and the score for the whole reaction is multiplied by the reaction's multiplier, which is equal to how deep in a combo the reaction is. The first block in a reaction is worth the multiplier *10.

So, if you cleared 4 reactions where the first is 3 blocks, the second and third were both spawned by the first reaction and are both 4 blocks, and the fourth is spawned from the third and is 3 blocks, the score would be:

1*(10+20+30) + 2*(20+30+40+50) + 2*(20+30+40+50) + 3*(30+40+50) = 980.

You also receive 1 point for every block that falls into the well. Special blocks are currently worth 100 points each.



The original intended scoring mechanic was similar to the above, but the first block in a reaction was actually worth 10 points more than the last block in the previous reaction! So, with that, the score would've been:

1*(10+20+30) + 2*(40+50+60+70) + 2*(40+50+60+70) + 3*(80+90+100) = 1750.

I'm happy to discuss scoring mechanics and possible changes to the mechanic to emphasize different aspects of the game as particularly important. Right now, combos are stressed because the multiplier can make later reactions worth so much. Large reactions are helpful and for small collections of blocks can be worth more than using combos (a 6 block reaction = 210 points, whereas two 3 block ones in combo are 180). Right now, a large reaction followed by combos isn't very helpful at all, whereas it matters more with the other scoring system, and now it's less helpful to do several reactions in a combo before a large reaction than it is with the other system. Do people like the greater isolation between reactions provided by the current system? Do they want more isolation? Less isolation? The more the score of reactions depends on previous reactions, the more combos will make the score skyrocket.


Also, there may be bugs in scoring at this time. If you find any (as I have while writing this post), please let us know in the bug reports forum. Feel free to post your thoughts on scoring in this thread! I'd like to get some feedback before asking Chris or Keith to look into what's up with the scoring system and fix it to be a certain way.

[jkefka]

I like the fundamental concept behind the scoring, that longer chains of consecutive reactions are the primary mechanism of getting more points.  In the specifics, you might want to make different special blocks worth different numbers of points, just because some (e.g. tinder) are harder to deal with than others (e.g. metal grates).  Are they currently affected by chain multipliers?  It's something else you could think about, which would reward players for clearing them not as the first element in a chain but a later one.  Another possible route to consider is making some special blocks increase the multiplier, which would increase their value tremendously but would perhaps be too much.

Mostly it's a matter of 1. how ridiculously high you want people to be able to get with their scores and 2. how the scoring plays into levels with score-based objectives.

On that topic, I don't know if the current build can handle this, but I just thought of a neat puzzle where you have to keep your score BELOW a certain value while clearing a given number of blocks....

[Fiskbit]

Okay, so, the bug in the scoring system is fixed for the next release. The game is currently using the method in the second example I gave, where the base for the current reaction is the score for the last block in the previous reaction. This combined with the multiplier makes scores go up *fast*. The bug was making the scores be somewhere between the two examples depending on the specific situation (from the user's perspective, it was entirely unpredictable). I think going with the first method might be better to prevent scores from shooting up so quickly. I was able to get 1 million points from one reaction in zen mode, and the first would go a long way toward keeping scores down. Combos would still be where the points are at, but it'd be much more reasonable. More input on this would be very appreciated!

Regarding special blocks, I think currently they're worth 1000 times the multiplier of what caused them to be cleared, but I haven't checked that. I understand the desire of having different blocks have different values, but I feel like that might really start over-complicating the scoring system when dealing with score-based puzzles and such. As for special blocks increasing the multiplier, I think you'll be happy to hear that white blocks already cause the multiplier to increase by 1, so including white blocks early on in a combo can lead to a big increase in points.

[x4000]

I have added a page for this to the Tidalis wiki, where we can keep that centralized: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Tidalis_-_Scoring_Calculations