Update 2.11: Bonus Category Ratings

Yesterday's update included two new sets of bonus levels to the leaderboards: the levels from the XBOX release of Marble Blast Gold into its own "Bonus" difficulty, and the levels from Marble Blast Mobile into Ultra's new "Bonus" difficulty (plus Hypercube moved over, etc.)

There is debate about what to do with the ratings for those new levels - currently, they're just counted towards to the respective games. It is significantly easier to break the 14 million barrier on Gold, and berserk has already passed seven million on Ultra. Lots of people in the Discord server saying that MBG bonus rating does not belong in MBG, others don't care, others saying it's just a weird situation altogether.

So everything does not get lost in a fast-scrolling Discord channel, let's move the discussion here. These are some options that have been thrown out, and that are in the poll) :

• An exclusive "Bonus" category on the leaderboards just for the MBG and MBU bonus levels.
• Rating from the MBG and MBU bonus levels only count towards Overall rating (and do not factor in with the MBG and MBU leaderboards).
• The ability to sort the MBG and MBU leaderboards with or without bonus rating included.
• Remove the MBG and MBU bonus levels from the leaderboards entirely.
• Something that isn't listed here, in which case you scribble your thoughts in a reply.

Another potential piece of this puzzle is the Director's Cut levels from MBP - it hasn't been a widely discussed topic yet, but there couple be some doors opened while we're at it. Happy to talk about that here or not.

shoot hang on how do i add a poll

I'll put my thoughts that I stated in Discord (+ some further thoughts I came up with while writing this) in this thread for posterity's sake. 

I agree with the majority of people that the new MBG/U bonus levels should not be listed and rated among the official MBG/U levels. The LBs for those two games are highly contested and have been well established in their totals and current standings. Throwing in (even a small number of) not nearly as optimized levels with new rating curves will absolutely wreck the LBs as has already been demonstrated by a couple people easily surpassing the top spots. Perhaps after a while when the initial rush of the new levels is over it'd level out at some new total but I don't think it'd be worth the effort to go through. Additionally adding new levels which are not nearly as optimized compared to MBG which has seen over 20 years of efforts put in by the best of the best is strange. And similarly with MBU. Leaving them separate from the official levels seems to make the most sense. But putting them in customs like Director's Cut also seems silly. The suggestion was made to have a new "Extras" category, to be listed along the other official levels which appeases those like me who want to see these levels be official (and not in customs) but not wreck the well established MBG/U leaderboards and is one I fully support.

Additionally MBP's Director's Cut levels should be moved out of custom as they never truly belonged there to begin with. But, do they go in with MBP or join the new bonus levels in Extras? As DC has always been separate from MBP on the LBs maybe it makes sense to keep it separate still. But on the other hand these levels have been included in all but the first MBP WRR and they're at least treated like MBP levels even if the original game didn't officially include them. I could see this one going either way and I'm not attached to either of these two, I only want to see it moved out of customs. I'm not at all concerned with DC being moved from Customs wrecking the LBs for Customs, those change frequently enough with new levels and removing a few is of no consequence to that. 

Lastly I'd like to say something perhaps tangential but with partial overlap to this discussion. I think the Overall ranking should be solely the official levels (including these new Bonus levels) and customs ought to be it's own separate thing from the official ranking. Customs far outweighs and outshines the official levels and as more and more level packs are added that will only become more-so the case. Official levels are the primarily contested levels and ought to be treated with that same respect with their own collective LBs. Customs are great and all but they're just a fun side thing to the main games they need not be treated as equals for total ratings. One last thing I thought of while writing this, the Dragon's Destiny achievement should be determined only by official level ratings. This would make it more prestigious akin to it's original intention. 

I'll cut this off here before it becomes a list of suggestions I wish were made.
TL;DR, put new bonus levels in a new Extras category as part of the official levels, and move DC from customs to either MBP or Extras, I don't care which. 

I agree 100% with Doomblah's second and fourth paragraphs and dearly hope we see those changes happen.

As for the third paragraph, at first I thought Director's Cut should be moved into MBP. The DC levels have been around since the PhilsEmpire days (if only there were a way to go back in time and import PhilsEmpire Scores to MBP/PQ), so they have well-established scores on them already, which means they wouldn't have the problem that these new MBG/MBU bonus levels have. But if we're going to have an Extras category, you may as well just stick them in there just to be consistent about not giving new rating to game totals that people may be very familiar with. I guess I'm ambivalent about this one too.

Thanks for posting about this! I knew the rating situation was going to bother people, and I'm included in that tbh. I was hoping we would get more community input on this before releasing the update, but since the new multiplayer mapset wasn't out yet and the tournament was coming up it kinda forced our hand. Merging the ratings with the base games was easy to implement and was done as a stopgap to get the update out in time.

Having the option to sort a game both with+without the bonus levels sounds nice, but I'm not sure exactly how that'd be implemented both in-game as well as on the website, and that wouldn't have too much benefit (I don't think many people will care about what someone's rating is with combined base game+bonus levels). Adding a new "Extras" category with MBG+MBU levels (and probably also MBP) sounds like a better approach, so those levels can still be grinded and give rating to something outside of overall, and those levels won't much with the base games' ratings which we've grown accustomed to.

I'm happy to hear the results of this poll and thanks again for bringing the topic up. It does seem like people are enjoying grinding the levels which was the hope, since it felt weird having these levels sitting there without having leaderboard spots to grind for. The rating part of it will be sorted out soon 🙏