Here is my rule of thumb for levels of Donkey Kong play

[homerwannabee]

OK, here is my scoring rule of thumb in what classification a player should be considered in regards to Donkey Kong.

0 to 100,000 is Beginner level.  This is a person who has still not passed the 3rd elevator.
100 to 300,000 is Recreational level.  The person who has been playing from time to time the past few years, but never really seriously is recreational.
300 to 500,000 is what I would call the Intermediate level.  This is the person who takes the game on a somewhat serious level
500 to 700,000 is what I would call expert level.  This is the level where the springs are no longer that much of an issue, and the person has learned the more complex barrel jumps.
700,000 to 900,000 is what I would call master level.  If you can get to around the end of the game you have mastered it.
900,000 to 1,050,000 is what I would call the grand master level.  This is the point that not only are you killscreening, but you are incorporating harder to get point pressing techniques .  This is where the herd really starts to thin out.
1,050,000 to 1,200,000 is what I would call the Elite level.   This is where you are one of the best in the game.   You are now the creme of the crop in regards to Donkey Kong play.  This is the level where you get excluded from some competitions because you are too good.

1,200,000 plus  is All Time Elite.  A person who gets this score is not only elite for this time period, but will be among the elite of all time whenever the game runs it's course whether it be 50 years from now or 1,000 years from now.

[ChrisP]

I would quibble over a lot of this, but I think you're on the right track. Definitely in the ballpark at least. (And I assume that all levels up to 900K are meant to imply "single hammer" pace.)

I would add a few gradations at the bottom, and definitely more at the top, and would actually get rid of one in the middle.

In my experience, the only players who get stuck in the 500-700K range are "double-hammerers".

There seems to be no such thing as a player who's gotten 500-700K more than a dozen times in "single hammer" games but who has NOT hit the kill screen. Once you can get over 500K in nearly every game, you're almost certainly kill-screening it at least sometimes. I can't explain the subtleties or the reasons for this phenomenon, I just know that it was true of me and seems to be true of others.

One day in chat Vincent laid out what he considered the tiers, they agreed pretty closely with mine, and I saved what he said, but I can't remember what exactly my tiers were, nor can I find the damn chat...

[marinomitch13]

There seems to be no such thing as a player who's gotten 500-700K more than a dozen times in "single hammer" games but who has NOT hit the kill screen.

*cough* ME! *cough*

[ChrisP]

I'm surprised to hear that you've played that many single hammer runs *at all*, let alone over a dozen ending at 500K+!

I'm not super-confident in my theory, and definitely not confident when it comes to you oddballs who start without the single-hammer training wheels.  The learning process and the plateaus seem to work differently for that camp.

[marinomitch13]

Yeah, I had probably 12-13 straight games in a row between 500k and 600k before I got a 667k (I think that was the score). Currently I have 4 games over 700k, but I think *all* of my last 20 serious attempts have been over 500k (assuming I didn't restart due to a start-death). The last 4 games I have played were around 650k where I lost 2 men back to back, so for all intents and purposes I don't really fit the 500k-700k mold, since I feel I could get a KS at almost any time without too much hassle -but, alas, I do not play DK enough these days, and I kinda want my first KS to be a super high score, so I don't really care about getting an easy, low KS (unless it is to win a wildcard competition ). I may try to go for that top-hammer-only 1m+ for my first KS, now that I think about it...

[Bliss1083]

Mitch I'm one of the players who can get 500k whenever and still have yet to get a kill screen. It sucks. Lol, I've played to 500k on a decent pace of 55k levels and first death at 315k or so. I only did that because I was bored. Then I started doing it all the time. I only started doing single hammers again recently. Just trying to knock out a KS before May now.