Warning: Long post incoming! Here's a tl;dr:
1.) A deduction of 5% of the maximum score would usually cause the affected entry to place 2-4 ranks lower even if it'd be only slightly too long (only compared top ranks of 2 past CLDCs)
2.) How is the length measured? Are judges gonna speedrun every single entry and measure by stopwatch? Or is it more like a "felt length" of submissions (post contains example / compares 2 levels).
3.) How is the penalty gonna be handled / deducted. Mathematically, so if 1 judges votes for it 2 against you get a 1,66 point penalty? Or do 1/2/3 out of the 3 judges have to vote for it, so it gonna be fully deducted?
4.) Superflous rule, since judges can already deduct points from level design if a level overstays its welcome. Now the judges actually mustn't consider length as part of the level design, since if they did so, they'd punish the creator twice which would be quite a heavy kick to the @$$
-> Gonna vote this rule as most inconsiderade rule for a contest 2020 for this year's mosts
Originally posted by idolOriginally posted by SarielOriginally posted by idolThere are a few ways to get a penalty for your entry:
If a level is too long: -5 Points Overall.
Is this a fixed -5 points penalty? You mention that a perfect playthrough should take at max. 5 minutes.
But would a level, which takes 6 minutes get the same penalty as a level that takes 15 minutes? Or can the judges scale this penalty, depending on how exaggerated the levels feels?
for all intents and purposes, yes it is a fixed -5 point penalty. if someone decided to be an ass and make an hour long perfect run level, then it could be susceptible to disqualification. just be reasonable.
1.) This could lead to "unfun" 4 minute entries getting a better score than a "fun" 6 minute level.
Don't get me wrong there I don't compare last place with 1st place but a fixed 5 point penalty is quite a lot. Just comparing a few old CLDCs here:
2018 (you have to deduct 3 points here (60*5%) instead of 5 (100*5%) since the max. score was only 60 instead of 100 points):
1 idol/katrina 56.7/60
2 FrozenQuills 55.0/60
3 Sariel/Wakana 53.7/60
4 E-man38 51.7/60
5 Tob/Luks 49.7/60
-> With such a deduction each top entry would've ranked about 2-3 places lower.
2016:
1st: idol (84.6/100)
2nd: FrozenQuills (79/100)
3rd: Blind Devil (77.4/100)
4th: ft029 (77.2/100)
5th: allowiscous (76.6/100)
6th: G.D. (72.2/100)
7th: lolyoshi (71.6/100)
8th: levelengine (71.2/100)
9th: Pseudogon (71/100)
-> Again such a deduction would've made a difference of about 3-4 ranks again (except for 1st place)
2.) Additionally to this I wonder how the length is measured. I doubt each judge gonna replay each level that long until they get a perfect playthrough and measure if this exceeded the 5 minute rule by stopwatch.
I think it's more about the length a judge feels during playing? Let me make an example here comparing 2 KLDC entries (SKIP THIS IF YOU ARE A KLDC JUDGE)
https://youtu.be/nrf6m7eHebg
-> This level is only ~2 minutes long in a perfect playthrough. Yet the player might feel it is way longer, since the 1st half suffers from having no checkpoint and therefore the player might spend 3 hours on it.
https://youtu.be/oMMB5zB74iY
-> This level is roughly 4 minutes long. So by maths its twice as long, yet the player might not feel this doubled length since this level gives you 7 checkpoints. So will a rewarding checkpoint system considered into judging an entry? Or will it be completely ignored since this is a CLDC not a KLDC and even if levels might be challenging checkpoints might not be as essential as for kaizo.
3.) An other question that comes to my mind is how the penalty is gonna be handled and deducted. You are 3 judges. Assuming you go for the "feeling based" length (since i assume no judge would take the effort and speedrun every single entry just to measure its length) it may vary if you decide that a level is too long or not. So would 1 judge, claiming a level is too long, already cause the level to get penalised by a 5 point deduction. Does it need to be the majority, so 2 out of 3 judges for the penalty to take effect or do all three judges have to agree on the penalty? Or would it be mathematically deducted, like 1 judge votes for the penalty, 2 against -> 1/3 * 5points penalty = -1,66 penalty? You haven't mentioned that by any way.
4.) Furthermore i think this penalty is absolutely superfluous! You as judges have any power you need to deduct score from level design if a level feels to boring, tedious, repetitive or simply too long for you. Especially for having a range of 60 points in total you can scale quite precisely here. With this penalty the length of a level objectively shuoldn't be a subject of judging for the overall score of 100 points, because if you already get you fixed 5 point penalty and then you also deduct points at the overall score you'd punish the designer twice, which seems kinda unfair to me.
► Instead I'd rather make this 5 minute playthrough rule more a "fair warning" and that you consider deducting points from level design if a level exceeds this length too much. Yet every judge can judge him-/herself when his 5 mins of patience are over. As stated in my tl;dr i think this is very inconsiderate right now and demotivates me so much from participating.
End of statement. Hope, I made my concerns clear to y'all. If anyone decided to read this as a whole, let me know what you think. Thanks for your time!
edit: fixed a typo and linked the YT vids