Most "Cheats" should become "Handicaps"; also, new "Handicaps" to add:

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Handicaps will be applied consecutively.  For example, a score of 100000
using GH2 Sloppy with Widest note hitwindow with No Fail on would result in
a final score of:

100000 * 0.80 * 0.80 * 0.85 = 54400

Cheats that should become Handicaps, with suggested scale factors (scaling
of end score down):
 * GH2 Sloppy (x0.80)
 * Note hitwindows Wide (x0.90) & Widest (x0.80)
 * No Fail (x0.85)
 * HOPO Frequencies of More(x0.95), Even More(x0.90), and Most(x0.85)
 * Slowdown: 3/4 Speed(x0.75), 1/2 Speed(x0.50), 1/4 Speed(x0.25)
 * Jurgen Easy Assist(x0.60)
 * Jurgen Medium Assist(x0.70)

New Handicap entries:
 * Effects save star power (x0.90)
 * Guitar: All Tapping(x0.70)
 * Drums: Auto Bass Kick (Jurgen Bass Drum Assist) (x0.70)

"Effects save star power" should be considered a handicap.  (Although, RB2
for PS2 allows consecutive, close sustain notes right after a starpower
sustain note to continue rewarding starpower if whammied continuously.  Not
sure if this is a bug or a feature which needs implementing.)

Original issue reported on code.google.com by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 31 Jan 2009 at 5:26

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Positive handicap entries will actually increase your final score - but we will 
hold
off on adding some of the HOPO related items here as things will change once 
the RB2
HOPO system is implemented in issue 280.  For now, some positive handicap items:
 * Note hitwindows Tight(x1.05) & Tightest(x1.10)
 * HOPO Frequencies of Less(x1.01) and Least(x1.02) - or No HOPO system / HOPOs off
(x1.03)
(Logic is needed to ensure that no HOPO related handicaps are applied after the 
No
HOPO system handicap is encountered, as they don't matter)

More negative handicaps (some will require issue 280 first):
 * RB2 Sloppy HOPO System (x0.80)
 * Two-note chords (x0.75)

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 31 Jan 2009 at 5:31

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One thing to consider with this system is songs that require a HOPO setting 
other
than the normal one to be played as they are in the actual game. It would suck 
if we
only got 80% of the score we WOULD have if we hadn't played the song as it was 
intended.

Original comment by MofoMan2...@gmail.com on 31 Jan 2009 at 5:58

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Also, it will be important to let the player see how this affects his or her 
star
rating as well.

In-game stars will indicate what the raw score would have earned you in terms 
of star
score.

Then, when the game results screen comes up, it should show this raw star score 
and
then update it with one handicap at a time.  We will need a star "decrease" 
sound
effect to play as well, when a star is lost due to handicaps.  Handicap 
application
should also be delayed; first display & apply one handicap, show the new star 
score,
rinse and repeat until all handicaps have been applied.

The user should also be able to press a button and skip all the delays 
involved. 
Impatience is a virtue.  :)

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 31 Jan 2009 at 6:17

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Yes, song.ini forced HOPO distance settings will have to be handled 
differently, and
not penalized.  

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 31 Jan 2009 at 6:18

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Also, a forced song.ini HOPO frequency setting must tell the game to ignore any
user-set HOPO frequency handicap.

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 31 Jan 2009 at 6:19

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one thing to think about with handicaps
when considering the above situation with Sloppy Widest and No Fail enabled.

There are two ways to do this
1)100000 * 0.80 * 0.80 * 0.85 = 54400
2)100000 - (100000*0.2) - (100000*0.2) - (100000*0.15) = 45000

Method 2 should be used if we want to make each handicap a percent of the 
original score.

Original comment by Hwor...@gmail.com on 31 Jan 2009 at 7:38

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No owner. Well then, I'll get on this. Hopefully it goes fast.

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 1 Feb 2009 at 4:33

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Oops I posted this on the wrong issue before (damn it I hate when my browser 
crashes 
and I get lost in previously opened tabs..).

I think that the penelty for 2 note chords is a bit too much. you still get 
lower 
score in any case and it's for keyboard players that can't pull off all 3 note 
chords because of hardware limitations. 0.85 seems more reasonable to me. in 
any 
case I still feel that this should be added to scores_ext and utilized by the 
score 
servers, but this will work fine too as it can be recalculated once that the 
implemented in the server(s).

Original comment by azzc...@gmail.com on 1 Feb 2009 at 5:36

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Good point, Two Note Chords should have a less strict penalty of 0.85 instead 
-- 
they're already going to be missing the notes in chords that they can't play 
fully.

Besides, add to that the fact that they are playing with keyboards and not 
guitar 
controllers, that in itself is a handicap IMO.

Also - Hworthi, that's another good point, but Method 1 (as described in the 
first 
post) is the way I envision this working.  Consecutive applications of 
handicaps 
will be fine.  

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 2 Feb 2009 at 7:40

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Here's my thoughts on the mode:
sloppy - 75% - In songs where it is useful, it makes them substantially easier. 
This
is probably too much for easier songs.
Speed - 100^SpeedPct% (so 50% speed = 10% score. This is a giant cheat; I can FC
TTFAF easily at 50%, which is easily 10 times my non-cheat score)
Fail - 80% - I played several songs out of my difficulty range and I added 
roughly
20% to my score
2Note- 90% - There are so few three-note chords in the majority of songs anyway 
that
it doesn't seem to warrant a 25% (or even 15% cut)
hit windows - as given
tap bonuses - as given
whammy Saves SP - 95% - this depends a lot on the song. Shorter songs and songs 
with
many long notes would be better served by 90%, but most songs only give you ~5% 
bonus.
Jurgen - 0%
Easy  - 50% - the score difference from hitting every easy to hitting the 
average of
expert and hard is about 50%. Per a bunch of charts on score hero. This would 
be too
steep a penalty for people using easy assist on medium difficulty, but 
presumably
they will have an easy difficulty in that case.
Hard/Bass - as noted

I agree with Harris/Qstick on applying the handicaps based on your original 
score
rather than consecutively, unless we can come up with an order of operations 
from
most significant cheat to least significant cheat.

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 2 Feb 2009 at 8:06

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"10000*.85*.8 does not equal the same as 10000*.8*.85"

Yes they do... both of those equal 6800.

Original comment by mrhappen...@gmail.com on 2 Feb 2009 at 10:17

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Oh, that tricky multiplication. Tricky tricky.

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 2 Feb 2009 at 10:20

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Haha well if the cheats are only using multiplication you wont need any order 
of 
operations.

Original comment by mrhappen...@gmail.com on 2 Feb 2009 at 10:23

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Clearly sixth grade math is long since forgotten on my end.

I still lean towards option 2, but now I can't appeal to math. It's just 
because I'm
a hard-ass. I'll switch to the original in my testing and see how it plays.

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 2 Feb 2009 at 10:31

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haha yea ignore that i wasnt thinking straight

Original comment by Qst...@gmail.com on 2 Feb 2009 at 10:41

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It's up to you, I still think option 1 makes more sense (as with Option 2 you 
can
theoretically end up with a 0 or negative score with enough handicaps applied) 
and is
also simpler.  

Consecutive handicaps can be applied in any order, says the commutative and
associative properties of multiplication :)

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2009 at 1:08

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( http://www.aaamath.com/pro74b-propertiesmult.html )

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2009 at 1:09

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Oh man. Super useful! THAT's getting bookmarked.

The bright colors and dark text help me learn better. It's the only reason I pay
attention to video games, so it's sure to work.

And an interactive quiz where I can push buttons!!

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2009 at 1:26

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haha thats great, i need to just stop doing math and change my major to 
Forestry or
something

Original comment by Qst...@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2009 at 1:48

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hehe

This also means, by the way, that we can show the effective overall handicap at 
the
results screen

(from above example:
100000 * 0.80 * 0.80 * 0.85 = 54400
We can show "0.544x Handicap Adjustment" (.8 * .8 * .85) or something 
similar... also
a list of the active handicaps and their factors.)

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2009 at 2:17

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yea i think akedrou had planned to do that under score while playing throughout 
the
song. thats a good feature

Original comment by Qst...@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2009 at 2:37

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More notes for later enhancement - 

As the handicaps are evaluated one at a time, when they pop up the game should 
play
one of the appropriate instrument's screwup sounds.  Then one more screwup 
sound when
"0.544x Effective Handicap" appears at the bottom in larger print.

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2009 at 2:45

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(by the way - I envision a 0.5 to 1.0 second delay between handicaps popping up
during this process... of course, unless a player presses a button)

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2009 at 2:51

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What to do about hit accuracy based star scores? 6+ stars are instantly dropped 
to 5
if cheats are found, but I'm not sure how to manage the original FoF scoring 
system
with the lowering of scores. Ignore it?

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 4 Feb 2009 at 12:54

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Hmm.... the FoF style scoring system will have to be handled a little 
differently;
perhaps take the star score and multiply by 100 (5 stars = 500), scale this 
number
with all the handicaps, and then round to the nearest star score?

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 4 Feb 2009 at 1:04

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(for example, 5 stars with GH2 Sloppy and Widest hitwindow:

5 stars -> 500 temp. score * 0.8 * 0.8 = 320 -> 3 stars)

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 4 Feb 2009 at 1:06

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Initial star "decrease" sound, for when a player loses a star due to handicap 
adjustments in the game results scene, can simply be the star "ding" sound 
reversed 
(until someone comes up with a better sound effect to use).

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 5 Feb 2009 at 2:40

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basically done the coding - cleaning it up now.

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 5 Feb 2009 at 11:38

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r917

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 6 Feb 2009 at 6:41

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If Effects Saves SP is considered a cheat and therefore applying a handicap 
(which I
don't completely agree with), it should be moved to the cheats menu.

Also, certain cheats should not be applied when playing a certain instrument 
(i.e.
Effects Saves SP for drums, Autokick Drum for guitar, etc.).

Original comment by ryanturcotte@gmail.com on 6 Feb 2009 at 11:20

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Yea. Essentially much of the Gameplay Settings should be moved to Cheats. This 
will
also help recombine the options that were split with the implementation of the 
cheat
menu. Already working on the second.

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 6 Feb 2009 at 11:49

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issue 534 is another handicap we need to have implemented before we make the big
switch over to the new score chart.  Relevant, so linked here.  I will work on 
it if
you don't want to, after I get to the other issues ahead of it.

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 7 Feb 2009 at 12:10

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issue 537 is a related issue; we do want to be sure that old scores from
pre-3.100-final versions can't be uploaded to the world charts.  Only new 
scores with
the handicap system in place.  

So... should we change where the scores are stored in each song?  Perhaps it's 
time
for a scores.ini while we change the variable names and encoding order / 
content.

Version string should also be changed to something like "FoFiX-3.100" for 
sending to
the world chart instead of "1.2.451-RF" (issue 90).

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 7 Feb 2009 at 12:32

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Progress in r932

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 7 Feb 2009 at 3:37

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BTW, I just let Jurgen play a song all the way through on Quickplay with the new
0.75x speed factor handicap on to test.  The handicap application dropped the 
score
down to 0 when Jurgen was displayed but I was still asked for a name and it 
saved my
highscore with just the 0.75x handicap applied.

This didn't happen at full speed.

Original comment by chris.paiano@gmail.com on 7 Feb 2009 at 6:03

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ah yes - fixed in r938, I probably meant to say.

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 7 Feb 2009 at 9:32

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r959, we'll call this closed.

Original comment by aked...@gmail.com on 9 Feb 2009 at 3:25

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