I decided to an analysis of 100 of my men in Donkey Kong

[marinomitch13]

Good work, George! Glad to hear those barrel boards are coming along nicely now. Figuring out how not to get 1/16th'ed is good stuff!

KEEP PLUGGING THOSE 'LEAKS'! GO GO GO

[Shane_NC]

George if you want I could show you a few things on the springs that dramatically helped my game and everyone that I have showed. My stream is Shane_NC, stop by sometimes or send me a message when im online on DKF.

I guess I have no right to disagree with Dean on DK, but I dont think it takes MONTHS to become profiecient on the springs. Kasper learned the springs in a few hours, and It only took me a few days. The other day in save state practive I hit 47 in a row before I stopped. Id say if you spent a solid 10 hours with the springs you should be fine.

[homerwannabee]

This time I really started off strong, but along the way I lost focus or something.  In some areas I did really good, and in others I really feel like I dropped the ball i.e. the elevators. 

The stats

Reached level 18 one time: A new record!
Reached level 17 one time: A new record!
Reached level 16 one time: A new record!
Reached level 15 one time: A new record!
Reached level 14 two times: A new record!

I passed 756 total boards out of 856 boards for a success rate of 88.3% A new personal record!
I passed 337 out of 366 total barrel boards for a success rate of 92.0% A new personal record!  I am happy about this one big time, because from level 5 on 50 percent of the boards are barrel boards.  If I hadn't sucked so bad on the elevator boards I really think I would have done much, much, much better.
I passed 154 out of 181 rivet boards for a success rate of 85.0%; the rivet boards really were not with me.  Had a ton of screw jobs.
I passed 139 out of 165 elevator boards for a success rate of 84.2%.  I just went too soon, too often.  This really killed my game.  I was once over 92% I know I can do better.  Even my epic game where I hit 690k I actually lost a man on the elevator as well.  If I can touch up my elevator game, and bring it to 92% like my barrel boards it basically increases my chances drastically for a killscreen.
I passed 126 out of 144 pie factory boards for a success rate of 87.5%.  The game was nice to me on the pie factory boards for once.

So with this update it all comes down to the elevator boards.  It's the one thing I need to become more focused in. 

[stella_blue]

I passed 139 out of 165 elevator boards for a success rate of 84.2%.  I just went too soon, too often.  This really killed my game.  I was once over 92% I know I can do better.  Even my epic game where I hit 690k I actually lost a man on the elevator as well.  If I can touch up my elevator game, and bring it to 92% like my barrel boards it basically increases my chances drastically for a killscreen.

Tell me about it.  I had a game 4 months ago where I lost my first 3 lives on the L06-4 elevator stage.  That's not a typo; 3 consecutive spring deaths on Level 06.  Don't ask me why I didn't restart.  From there, I cruised to L13-2 for a 517,500 final score.

If not for elevator deaths, resulting from chronic impatience,  11 games played in the past 19 months could have reached Level 16, with at least one man in reserve.

Dying on that one board, where survival is essentially 100% within the player's control, is simply unacceptable.

[homerwannabee]

Yep, another 100 man analysis, and as you may have guessed I made a major improvement!  The key was I was over 90 percent on barrel boards, and elevator boards.   I also was decent on the pie factory, and rivet boards.

Here are the records for myself.

I reached level 21 one time: A new personal record!
I reached level 20 one time: A new personal record!
I reached level 19 one time: A new personal record!
I reached level 18 one time: Ties a personal record!
I reached level 17 two times: A new personal record!
I reached level 16 two times: A new personal record!
I reached level 15 two times: A new personal record!
I reached level 14 three times: A new personal record!
I reached level 13 three times: A new personal record!
I reached level 12 three times: Ties a personal record!
I reached level 11 four times: Ties a personal record!
I reached level 10 seven time: A new personal record!
I reached level nine   12 times:    A new personal record!
I reached level eight  13 times:   A new personal record!
I reached level seven 17 times:  A new personal record!
I reached level six       21 times: A new personal record!

As far as the boards go
I passed 965 out of 1065 total boards for a success rate of 90.6%:  A new personal record!
I passed 442 out of 485 barrel boards for a success rate of 91.1%
I passed 191 out of 210 rivet boards for a success rate of 90.9%
I passed 174 out of 189 elevator boards for a success rate of 92.0% (Although not a personal record on either barrel or elevator it's the first time I have been over 90% for both boards)  Combined the percentage success rate is 91.3% which is a new personal record!
I passed 158 out of 181 pie factory boards for a success rate of 87.2%

So even though I did not have a personal record for any particular board overall I jumped up greatly in my numbers.  I think I am actually now pretty close to getting a killscreen.  Heck I WAS pretty close to getting a killscreen when I missed by 3 boards!  Oh, and my next post I want to show how much I progressed using Hank Chien's numbers for probability for a killscreen.  One thing though.  I don't think he calculated the fact that Level 5, and up barrel boards are much easier than level 5 barrel boards.  I had a few games go short because I lost 2, 3, or even 4 men before I even hit level 5.

[homerwannabee]

OK, when I started this whole thing my average start was completing level 5-2  the odds for me at the time of getting a killscreen was 7,706,778,296 to 1 with me having to wait 27,940,610 years if I played 3 games a day to get it! 

Than I improved to completing level 5-3, and my odds improved to 1,989,228,620 to 1 odds of getting a killscreen with me waiting only 7,038,154 years if I played 3 games a day to do it. 

Than I improved to completing level 6-4, and my odds really improved to 700,000 to 1 odds of getting a killscreen with me waiting only 650 years if I played 3 games a day to do it!  Hey if I played 30 games I day I could have done it in 65 years!

Than I improved to completing level 6-6, and my odds improved to 94,913 to 1 with me waiting only 87 years to do it!  Hey if I do 9 games a day I can get it down to 29 years!  Now it's in my lifetime!

Than I improved to completing level 7-2, and my odds improved to 30,730 to 1 with me waiting only 28 years to do it! Now I only have to do 6 games a day, and I could have done it in 14 years!

Than I improved to completing level 7-4, and my odds improved to 10,238 to 1.  Hey, Allen Staal has over 6500 games played in a very short time, and so now it's looking very promising!

Now with this latest analysis I improved to an average of completing level 9-1.  Now the odds are 650 to 1!  Now the odds go down to 7 months to pull it off.  But if I play 10 games a day I can do it in 2 months!  Killscreen here I come!

[hchien]

Now you're interpreting my chart correctly!

However, I do feel you will killscreen in less than 2 months because:

1- you are likely still improving while you play

2- you will likely restart if you die early (the chart assumes you play out every game)

Something that will work in your disfavor is: the better you get the fewer games you will get to play per day.  If you're averaging 100K per game, 10 games/day is easy.  But if you're averaging 300K+ it will be tough to maintain that average.

And yes you're right, my chart does not take into consideration that the early boards are harder:

2- you have the same probability of passing each screen.

I say within 1 month.  Obviously you can get really lucky and it could happen today or really unlucky and it could take 6 months.  Good luck!

[homerwannabee]

Now you're interpreting my chart correctly!

However, I do feel you will killscreen in less than 2 months because:

1- you are likely still improving while you play

2- you will likely restart if you die early (the chart assumes you play out every game)

Something that will work in your disfavor is: the better you get the fewer games you will get to play per day.  If you're averaging 100K per game, 10 games/day is easy.  But if you're averaging 300K+ it will be tough to maintain that average.

And yes you're right, my chart does not take into consideration that the early boards are harder:

2- you have the same probability of passing each screen.

I say within 1 month.  Obviously you can get really lucky and it could happen today or really unlucky and it could take 6 months.  Good luck!

I decided something this morning.   What is more important to me than a killscreen is my score.  I realized that I could go another month or two trying to get a killscreen that will raise my high score about 20,000 points if that, or I could start to go bottom hammer after level 5, and start working on that so that I will have a great improvement upon my high score.   So I am going to do after level 5 two hammer games from now on.   And for kicks I think I will show my after level 5 two hammer game high score! Right now it's 113,600!

[hchien]

That plan is fine (to start point pressing).  21-4 is essentially a killscreen anyway but you will always have that monkey on your back (ahem Mitch).  But be warned that going from a killscreen to 1M will take just as long and in most cases much longer than going from scratch to a killscreen.  It may be worth that 1 month just to get that monkey off your back.  I can tell you the road to 1M will probably be much longer than that.

I remember Christian was in your shoes not too long ago and I told him to go for a killscreen because it wouldn't take much longer.  I think it took him a week after I said that.

If you start point pressing... piece of advice: don't get caught in the rut of focusing on the early boards.  I see too many players getting caught up with the first 4 levels which only account for about 10% of your total score.  Unless you are aiming for 1.1M+ the start is not that important.  I will tell you even when I'm aiming for 1.15M, I frequently finish 1-1 with only 9K.

[homerwannabee]

That plan is fine (to start point pressing).  21-4 is essentially a killscreen anyway but you will always have that monkey on your back (ahem Mitch).  But be warned that going from a killscreen to 1M will take just as long and in most cases much longer than going from scratch to a killscreen.  It may be worth that 1 month just to get that monkey off your back.  I can tell you the road to 1M will probably be much longer than that.

I remember Christian was in your shoes not too long ago and I told him to go for a killscreen because it wouldn't take much longer.  I think it took him a week after I said that.

If you start point pressing... piece of advice: don't get caught in the rut of focusing on the early boards.  I see too many players getting caught up with the first 4 levels which only account for about 10% of your total score.  Unless you are aiming for 1.1M+ the start is not that important.  I will tell you even when I'm aiming for 1.15M, I frequently finish 1-1 with only 9K.

Hank, that is why I said Level 5 two hammer games because from level 1 to 4 I will be essentially playing the same.  In fact the only difference is going to be the Level 5 and up two hammers. 

[ChrisP]

I see too many players getting caught up with the first 4 levels ...  Unless you are aiming for 1.1M+ the start is not that important.

Thank you.

I really don't understand people's masochism.

They spend 3 hours of every session making themselves miserable trying to get a start, burning off all of their energy, focus, mood, and spare time on the levels where the game is just messing with you and basically has you by the balls, when they're only going for 1.0M to 1.05M.

You can easily get that by warping if you shift the effort to where it actually counts, to L5+, where you're actually in control. Think about it, there are TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND points that you get to leave on the table! Leave them on the awful levels!

Dean, Ross, Hank, Vincent, Phil, these guys HAVE to do the dirty work. Most of us don't.

For anyone going for a million, a 115K start and 52K levels is, in the long run, going to require tremendously more effort, time, and annoyance than a 100K start and 53K levels.

JRTFBDNs!

[Xermon54]

9154 Posts in 482 Topics by 212 Members. Latest Member: Florentin
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Well, that escalated quickly! lol.

lol and I just saw that Chris posted the same thing, lovit!

But yeah, getting a start is the hardest thing in Donkey Kong. It's time consuming, and energy consuming, and most of all, it's extremely annoying/frustrating. I would recommend to anyone going for 1.15m or less to not aim for more than 120k after stage 4, since 90% of the frustration in Donkey Kong comes from getting a start (when you're point pressing).

[ChrisP]

George just noticed too, in the shoutbox.

Y'all are catching up to my kindergarten sense of humor!

[mikegmi2]

Yea I agree with Hank...it took me 3 months to get a killscreen, and a whole year after that before I cracked 1M.  There's just a lot more ways to die when you throw in that bottom hammer.

Congrats on your progress!

[Bliss1083]

I've had 118,300. On single hammer. By far my best but can top 110k start single hammer quite often. It would be insanely difficult but 1.1 can be achieved with those scores. The majority of us fall into the trying to get to a million club. I find 2 hammer with little pressing on the barrel boards I can still get 54,500k levels. It's a whole new ball game but my advice to 99 percent of people is to warp to level 5. I throw in a few total point pressing games but nothing like I use to do. 2011 I was a way better player than I am today I wish I'd never have slowed down my game play. I was point pressing at a great level then. But now focused on running boards.