4x4 5x5 combined lifetime points

[BoggleOtaku]

We can recognize a huge amount of effort that might otherwise be missed by combining 4x4 and 5x5 lifetime points.
Here are all members who have made it to both 4x4 and 5x5 lifetime lists, with their liftime points combined (as of today):

MegaWord	82702563
MrsOut	32646844
ThunderRock	31796142
msroboto	26457142
mloughlin	24578856
exwidget	20080728
Writegirl	17035516

Of special note, this puts MegaWord at #3 spot for combined lifetime points (behind #1 player for 4x4 and for 5x5).

Congratulations!

[bwt1213]

Something's not right in your list. I have more than 21,000,000 points in 5x5 alone, and I don't merit any kind of top overall score listing. I've played a while and I've done okay, but there are a whole LOT of players who have to have way more points than me. RussDNails, for one. I was #1 on the monthly points list exactly once in 11+ years. Russ is there pretty much every month and has been for the last couple years, at least.

[BoggleOtaku]

Hi bwt1213,

Thanks for you interest, and I apologize for not being sufficiently clear in my explanation.

It is possible that I made a mistake, but I found only seven people who appear in both 4x4 and 5x5 lifetime points lists (i.e., "Hall of Fame").

To make it currently on the 4x4 lifetime points list, one would have to have more than 5,761,784 points (5x5 requires 7,991,025 points).

While being high up the 5x5 lifetime points list, Your 4x4 lifetime points of 51268 and RussDNails' of 19740 are not sufficient to make it into the 4x4 lifetime list.

(RussDNails is of course the #1 player in the 5x5 list, which I alluded to in my post.)

I only wanted recognize those who were the intersection of the two lists (7 people) instead of everyone on both lists (493 people), since the tremendous accomplishment of those few making it on both lists is somewhat hidden.

I was thinking about this because I caught up to MegaWord's 5x5 lifetime points score, but only because MegaWord is currently working on 4x4 (I surmise), and would pass me back in a flash if (when) were to switch back over to 5x5.

I hope this helps.

[bwt1213]

Yes, it does help; I interpreted "on the lifetime list" as meaning anyone who was anywhere on the list -- i.e. anyone who had ever played both the 4x4 and 5x5 games. I played the 4x4 game for total points only a couple of times, and that by accident. The rest of the time, I've played 4x4 only for appw. So it will take me a very, very long time to accumulate the minimum number of points required to get to the HOF territory for 4x4.

[BoggleOtaku]

Same with me for 4x4.

[bwt1213]

I thought of something sort of similar a while back -- a total ranking for players for a month. For 5x5 and separately for 4x4, add up the placement by total points, average points per game, average points per word, and average words per game. So, theoretically, someone could get first place in all four categories and their overall score would be 4. If, like me in 4x4, there are categories in which I'm not listed because I'm basically not competing there, perhaps a rank of 100 or 1000 should be assigned.

The idea would be to recognize the all-around player -- someone who plays a lot of games, scores a lot of points, finds the high-point words, makes a lot of words while doing so, and makes a lot of words in each game. When I looked at the stats and just mentally added up those rankings, the players I think are the overall best had the lowest number and therefore the highest ranking. I think it would be nice if Stephen did that automatically and created a category for MVP -- Most Valuable Player -- and awarded that each month to the player with the lowest total ranking (numerically). Does anyone else think this is a good idea, or am I preaching nuttery?

[crazykate]

Isn't nuttery what this game is all about?

[BoggleOtaku]

I think a overall performance score would be great. A quadrathlon for the mind.

Here comes the nuttery:

Numbers of words and word points work well to differentiate amongst players, but longest word is relatively limited, hard to differentiate: multiple people get 23/24/25 letter words. Best average allows adequate differentiation, but a person cannot play for best average word points and most words at the same time. (In consequence, some people play with different accounts or different ways on different months.)

To address this issue, one could alter best word point scoring, for example, in a single game, by summing word length of a player's top ten longest words and dividing by the sum of the top ten longest words available in the puzzle. This score (normalized to a range of 0-1) would allow differentiation between players vying for longest words. It also would increase the range of puzzles such a player could play, not just puzzles with 9+ words to look for 25 point words. And it would allow going for most words in the same puzzle without hurting records for best words. (Best words could be scored similarly, sum of top ten word points found divided by sum of top ten available in the puzzle.)

To combine word points with these (0-1) normalized scores, # words could be divided by total number in puzzle. Word points could be divided by sum of word points available in the puzzle, so these are also normalized to 0-1 range. Then add, and overall score for a game would be range from 0-4.

There could be other ways as well to combine more different ways to play or score within single games and make a broader range of games attractive to play.