Time Ranks > Point Ranks , problem solved.
I think point ranks are still a very solid system, especially for the top players. In general they give a very good idea of who the best players are. Top players will always have a lot of WRs, and usually have some points on every level. There are different playstyles but generally a good player can get a lot of overall points if they are active. And since so many players seek points, it's become more of the de facto goal for players since it's the most active and competitive rankings.
I always thought time ranks were more accessible for a new player. Plus they don't punish players for using older or less insane strats, a PR is still a PR. Points have become really hard to get in GE, and knowledge can be hard to gain since so few levels have tutorials, as well as tutorials usually being geared towards the WR strats.
I'd like to hear people's opinion: Which do people find more impressive, a player with Bunker 1 17 and a total time of 19:59:43, or Robert Rune who is about 100th in time ranks with no points? I think the time rank shows a lot more dedication and overall mastery of the whole game. Of course none of his times are that impressive individually, but I'd say Robert would be more skilled. Essentially an equal number of people have gotten 17s or gotten similar or better time ranks.
WRs are always the most sexy, even the easy ones. Many players have obviously gotten a couple good times but have a ton of 20:00s on their times page. I always thought it was a shame since we don't have any kind of proper rankings as a result. It's not like these players couldn't post their actual times, and the rankings should be a lot stronger if people cared. It literally takes longer to make an account and post a time than to beat any level for a moderately skilled player.
I'd rather know where I stand in the time ranks; I am top 200 but in reality there are at least 50 or so active players that are clearly way more skilled but pretend they can't even beat the game (Like Grav, Oscar Pleininger, Matthew Burden, Philip Bezgoubov, Craig McGrath just to name a few). Simply selecting the level, pausing out, and recording the clear time would undoubtedly cut their total times by 15 minutes per level or more. There's the top 10 or so, who care about time ranks and post every PB (as well as having every PB gain points), as well as shit players like myself who are meticulous about it, and hundreds of degenerates who only care about points. Since such a large part of the player base doesn't bother to post, the time ranks are only useful for comparing people under 1:20 or so which is a pretty hard club to get into. Too many top players treat them like a joke. Never understood the logic behind it myself.
Somewhat off topic, but anyone have a list of every level by total amount of points they give? For example Bunker 1 Agent or Dam Agent would have to be over 10000 points, while something like Control 00A would be more like half that since there's a distribution of times. We could weight points with this in mind as a thought experiment, which would devalue the mega-tied times and show us more separation in the ranks. It might end up looking like the time ranks to some extent.
