Hey everyone!
It's been a bit of a grind, but we finally got our new reflex.racing network up and running just in time to celebrate 10 years of WM.
You are probably wondering what's changed since the previous website version was halted in February so let's just get to it.
Enhanced leaderboards
No more manual updates, we now have a docker container spinning every 20 minutes to automatically pull, filter and extend the leaderboards with extra features such as:
- New ranking system
- Activity monitoring
- Name censoring and input sanitization
- Players/Maps public data from Steam (updated once a day at around 12pm UTC)
These datasets are all archived on github and can be easily verified to ensure they were not tampered with.
The website also translates ^# color codes in names for better reading.
Steam players data only concerns the username, avatar and country when available and publicly accessible at the time of the refresh.
Map properties
About 99% of all maps now include a difficulty grade and a list of badges that show what tech you can expect to find in them.
This is useful if you're looking for a specific type of map to play or even discover old forgotten gems, since the game browser doesn't show which maps are strafe only, have particular design features or how difficult they can be.
Difficulty grades are based on a number from 1 to 7 as score prefix:
1 : Training maps
This grade represents all maps that can't be categorized as time trials since they can include multiple finish lines and are usually ports or just made to be broken.
2 : Beginner maps
These maps are the easiest type of time trials and can be completed just by walking.
3 : Easy maps
Can include few easy obstacles that require clearing for completing the map.
4 : Intermediate maps
They require some technical knowledge to be completed.
5 : Advanced maps
These are mostly technical time trials that require a high level of skills to be completed.
6 : Expert maps
This is the most difficult level of time trials as it requires extensive technical and route knowledge.
7 : Challenge maps
These are maps made out of a very challenging obstacle course that require precise execution on every single section.
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Then there's the suffix that shows how much effort is expected by using a character a-b-c:
a : Low effort
This category includes a low amount of obstacles and/or a short distance to the finish line.
b : Medium effort
Requires some degree of attention to keep the pace going.
c : High effort
Maps of extended length require a high level of attention to keep the pace.
Ranking system
The previous system only took the number of world records into consideration for global rankings since we didn't have difficulty grades available.
Now we can just calculate a score for each record, collect them for each player and sort the list:
(for each map)
playerScore += (playersCount / playerRank) * difficultyScore
This system rewards players that actually spend time grinding instead of just accumulating WRs on empty maps, and does not scale with a reltime to allow very quick records and map breaking skips.
However, considering this system can introduce bias, we are open to change difficulty grades given feedback from enough players.
News portals
This blog will be used by the reflex.racing admins to update the community on features development progress, guideline changes, upcoming events and casual racing topics.
There is also a wiki available, dedicated entirely to Reflex Arena race mode that's still being worked on.
Road to records moderation
Now for the tricky part.
As of this post date, hosted leaderboards are still unmoderated just as they appear in-game, but this is going to change soon.
My next post will address a way to differentiate casual and competitive racing as a very much needed feature for the next game update, with a fallback plan that could completely reshuffle the rankings by removing cheaters from the datasets. For now there is no need to do anything, take your time to explore the website and play more Reflex!
-htp
