Rating Relative to Designer Intention

Just a broad thought to a lot of people sparked by some comments in a recent rate on Duma...it is terribly unfair to rate an intentionally realistic ride lower because it doesn't push any boundaries. The designer's goal here was not to make the most insane No Limits coaster, but rather to make an exciting but believable B&M design. I highly suggest raters consider the designer's goals for the ride before rating every single coaster as if it's an Intamin mega coaster or a Gravity Group woodie, and notice that not every real ride or No Limits coaster is supposed to be the most intense design ever.

Another issue I've noticed is raters taking off points for features that would be exciting in real life, but do not necessarily transfer over well to NL. It's not the designer's fault you're not actually on a roller coaster, so lets try not to kill their score because you don't feel the wind or forces. I see a lot of rates on B&M hypers in particular where people take off points because airtime didn't exceed say -.5G. Please note that, both because of capacity and popularity, 10 year old Nitro at Great Adventure, a coaster that I'm fairly certain does not exceed -.5G, was the most ridden ride of any Six Flags last year. It clearly satisfies its demographic, so who are we to say it's not a great design because the airtime magnitude is not as strong as that of El Toro?

LeFLO also, in particular, shouldn't be getting low adrenaline scores because his spinner doens't have -1G and travel 80mph. It's not that hard to say hey, if this was built in real life, how would the target demographic like it relative to similar designs?

I recognize the title of the program is "No Limits," but that doesn't mean every design has to be over-the-top. There's nothing wrong with completely unrealistic fantasy designs, but please try to rate based on designer intention and the quality they're able to achieve.

[gouldy]

I haven't really been anywhere near the exchange for a long while, so I haven't really seen this particular issue. But for my own mind, this is obvious, isn't it?

I wouldn't think people would downrate a kiddie coaster, for not having 4g's and 12 inversions... would they? I don't know, like I say; I haven't been near the exchange for quite a while.

Yeah that was a bit of an exaggeration for effect on my part, but people do consistently rate relative to either a completely different ride style, or their own expectations of an ideal coaster. I think I see it most often on B&M hypers (which is why I highlighted the issue with those in my thoughts) I just think it's unfair for a designer to not even have a chance to earn full points simply because they chose a style that happens to not be one of the most intense in real life. Not all coasters are designed for enthusiasts.

I personally love to see when NL guys make rides that take into account a target demographic, construction and material costs, etc. I try to do so with my rides, but I too get comments like "this was fun but it's just a family ride so you get an 8" when in my description I noted that I intended the ride to be set in a family park. I also more frequently get "great ride, but too short, 8 in Adrenaline" when the particular design is longer than most of those of the same style in real life...rides that are consistently rated as the best around despite their length.

Also, if I see someone make, say, a realistic B&M invert design, when I'm rating, I'll look at the maximum amount of difference between all B&M inverted coasters in real life. I then rate relative to that difference...if I see element order being changed around, or shaping being slightly different on each ride, I expect to see that in a realistic NL design. Any more could be good if done right (see: Nemesis), or could make the design look like it's not a B&M. However, if a NL designer in 1999 were to create Katun, with the only reference being existing B&M rides like Raptor, then in my opinion they've done a great job, because I could really see a ride with that amount of innovation being done by B&M in real life. To take off points on a B&M design because it somewhat resembles another is wrong to me, considering they dominate even though they have rides like Raptor, Katun, Talon, and Patriot, that all look very similar.

If someone's making an Intamin, I expect more innovation, however I would not be inclined to kill an originality score if they chose to modify the basic Intamin Rita style layout, as amongst all the Mavericks and Volcanos, they've also done well with rides like Desert Race, Superman Escape, and Formula Rossa. Rating relative to designer intentions and real designs is, in my opinion, the only fair way to rate realistic designs in No Limits.

YES. Please people if you KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT IT IS YOUR JOB TO RATE RIDES. Otherwise there is no use uploading because people will download and the builder will NEVER KNOW how they need to improve or what they do well. At this point im done uploading to the exchange until people rate... Its no fun at all otherwise.

If you are referring to the fact that i said the pacing was bland because I couldn't feel wind or forces, I didn't take off points for that , in fact, I rated the Adrenaline above average of that of other sitdown B&M's. The pacing was better than most B&M's out there but was not the best. It still looked slow, but this is the major problem with simulators. As for the originality score, the lowest one, It didn't wow me at all, the only thing different was the layout and those turns near the beginning. Designers intention or not it still wasn't very original. Notice the high technical score, this was by far the closest I have ever seen anyone get to perfect B&M style. Kyle obviously knows what he is doing. But good shaping doesn't mean that adrenaline was mind blowing or that it was original.

I agree with the comments regarding rating a B&M style coaster, however, the adrenaline factor should not be down rated because the pacing was slowed a little to allow for realistic g forces. I am not as experienced in NL as most people on here, but I am no noob either. One thing I have noticed is B&M style coasters tend to run slower than most in the sim due to the g force measurements. For a simulator called No Limits, there do seem to be numerous limits. Also, not every ride that is designed using a certain track style is made to resemble that manufacturers style. Again, there are limits and one of those happens to be limited track styles in the sim compared to those available. People tend to down rate a ride because it does not follow a certain manufacturers style, but, maybe that was the intention. I know I have made some tracks that used a certain track style, but, that was mainly because it was most fitting for the layout I came up with. Also, I have noticed that not everyone rates the same. Just as an example I have noticed tracks getting lower ratings because someone did not like a certain element or where that element was placed. I thought the ratings were based on how well the coaster was built, not what elements were used. Just because you do not like a certain element doesn't make it a bad coaster.

Originally posted by C_Dude

If you are referring to the fact that i said the pacing was bland because I couldn't feel wind or forces, I didn't take off points for that , in fact, I rated the Adrenaline above average of that of other sitdown B&M's. The pacing was better than most B&M's out there but was not the best. It still looked slow, but this is the major problem with simulators. As for the originality score, the lowest one, It didn't wow me at all, the only thing different was the layout and those turns near the beginning. Designers intention or not it still wasn't very original. Notice the high technical score, this was by far the closest I have ever seen anyone get to perfect B&M style. Kyle obviously knows what he is doing. But good shaping doesn't mean that adrenaline was mind blowing or that it was original.

Someone felt guilty and HAD to defend themselves...lol

Sorry that i felt misunderstood and felt the need to explain why I rated Kyle's ride the way I did.

Well the reason I brought up C_Dude's rate is he felt that the ride was so boring (worthy of a 6 in adrenaline) that he had to speed it up and rate his own version of the ride. To me that makes much of the commentary artificial because you're not actually rating what the designer presented. What you said in your defense statement here about Duma being above average in adrenaline for a B&M hyper, but then you also said you'd give it a 6 as presented...that tells me you're being overly subjective. If a realistic B&M is above average and gets a 6 from you, and a realistic Intamin is above average and gets a 9 from you, that means the designer lost 3 points simply because they chose to design a B&M.

In response to spacemountainfan, I don't think the pacing in NL should be slowed to create realistic forces. I'm not 100% sure what you mean, so it's possible we're saying the same thing in a different way, but NL is accurate enough where pacing can be the same in the sim as real life, while yielding very similar forces. Thus, pacing should not have to be slowed or sped up to influence forces.

I agree that not every ride is designed to resemble a real style. That's part of what I meant when I was saying the designer intention should be taken into account. If they're trying to make a design that follows a particular style, then they should be rated in relation to what that designer has done with the given ride type. However, if they're trying to make their own style, I don't expect to see the track mostly follow a real style, but be somehow different. I've seen very few designers pull that off. To me, that usually comes off as the designer not taking the time to either make it accurate to the style, or come up with their own original design. Creating an original style is not at all easy...one must distinguish it from other company styles, in the same way that a GCI is different from an RCCA, a B&M hyper is different from a Morgan hyper, and a Premier launched coaster is different from an Intamin Accelerator. There's so much depth to the differences between the designs, and that's what I'd ideally hope to see from a designed advertised as ones own style in No Limits. IMO that's much more difficult than recreating an existing style, and I may even be inclined to give bonus points for achieving that goal of a completely new style...IF it's believable.

I do agree with the end of your paragraph spacemountainfan. That's why I argue against being subjective in general. Some personal opinion has to come into rating, and that's understandable. But don't take off just because you don't like something, especially if there's technically nothing wrong with it.

EDIT: My apologies...I mixed up southpuddle's and C_dude's rates. The points stand, but please distribute my comments accordingly lol. My bad.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Fact: If a majority of real life rides were recreated in NL exactly to scale and pacing, but we didn't know they existed in real life, they'd be rating down for low pacing and G's.

For once we agree on something.

[Coasterkidmwm]

That happened plenty before you got uppity and emo

/me runs

Originally posted by C_Dude

Sorry that i felt misunderstood and felt the need to explain why I rated Kyle's ride the way I did.

No where in that original post was your name mentioned. So, you assumed he meant you which meant you felt guilty and had to respond. I think if you truly stood behind it you really don't need to say a word until someone confronts you.

What happened here is someone made a sweeping observation and you attached yourself to it. lulz.

Just makes me laugh, that's all.

Not to mention the fact that there are probably very few people on this sit who actually know for sure the difference between a -0.4 air hill and a -0.6 air hill, IMO any force above or below 0 no matter how minute is definitely noticeable and will create some sort of physical reaction.

The difference between -.4 and -.6 was never in question. The difference between -.3 and -1.2 is very obvious and people looking for -1.2 when -.3 was the realistic goal is the problem.

Are you sure the rating system here is flawed? Says this observer...

Who said the rating system is flawed? My point was the raters themselves were flawed, and I don't think I've seen anyone say something about the system itself.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Originally posted by GerstlCrazy

Are you sure the rating system here is flawed? Says this observer...

You'll probably get much lower ratings than usual because the whole emo crew isn't here to inflate your numbers now.

I return to this site simply because i finally see this issue being addressed. I haven't uploaded anything in months for this same reason. I still use NL a lot, but this site dive-bombed when people started rating like this. I personally think we should all be a little more understanding of builders intentions, but there is a grey area here. Some of the "fun" was lost from this site due to peoples attitudes towards designing rides. We all joined this site to have a happy friendly community where we could share and upload rides for others to enjoy and rate. Some of our fundamentals as an online community have been completely destroyed. To me, everyone kinda forgot what constructive criticism really means, and things became so "uptight" around here. Let me boil this all down. Lets just have fun and build coasters for our enjoyment and satisfaction. Rate to the designers intent, and take your ratings as constructive criticism. Try as hard as you can not to start a damn flame war (yes I'm guilty of this in the past) over a simple rate...


Edit: I also want to add this note.

Designers: Please take the time to make a clear and concise description of your ride, including statistics and your intentions and goals for the ride.

Raters: Please take a brief moment to read the description of the designer, and rate accordingly based on the designers goals and intentions.

- We all could make this site so much better if we each tried to improve just a little bit. Lets get this place back to the happy friendly site it was back in 07-09...

Thanks

This thread makes me wanna start using NL more. Kinda glad someone brought the ratings on this site up.

I'm actually not very well trained in the area of coaster building and whatnot like most of you designers are. I know the basics. How coasters work, what g's are, and what g's are "realistic" in nature. However, after we get into talks about shaping and which coaster manufacturer has this set amount of G's on their rides; this is where I mainly lose my focus.

I guess my rates tend to be higher than most of you, simply because I rate a ride based on the designers intent and the way it was engineered in the sim. I know what pumping is, and I know when I see it and I know when a specific area of track has a jerk or something and I will dock points accordingly. However, taking off a point because your hills on your B&M hyper were off somewhat, I won't do that.

I appreciate the time that most of you guys spend making quality rides like you do, but I know that the ratings most of you guys have been recieving as of late have been very frustrating! All I hope is that the raters on this site actually do read this thread and take it to heart.

Originally posted by dcs221

Who said the rating system is flawed? My point was the raters themselves were flawed, and I don't think I've seen anyone say something about the system itself.

The raters were the system I was referring to. One in the same.

Originally posted by Coasterkidmwm

Originally posted by GerstlCrazy

Are you sure the rating system here is flawed? Says this observer...

You'll probably get much lower ratings than usual because the whole emo crew isn't here to inflate your numbers now.

Great well now where am I supposed to get attention?

...

[Coasterkidmwm]

Preferably another website

Shucks fella.