As almost any avid Donkey Kong player knows Donkey Kong has a way of killing you off, and the death is mostly on Donkey Kong, and not you. Because of that a score is not necessarily an accurate measure of how well you performed. For instance two scores of 300k can be entirely different. One could be 4 deaths by way of being hit by elevator, and the other 300k game could be 4 deaths by insane wild barrels, and near impossible to escape rivet scenarios.
So I decided there should be a more accurate stat on how well a person truly performed. I call it the Obvious Error Death Rate. or OEDR for short. This is where Mario's death is entirely on you, and not Donkey Kong.
Under this system your highest score would not necessarily be your best game. It would be the game where it is your highest score per obvious error death.
For example here are two different games.
One you have a score of 275,000 with only one Obvious Error Death
In the other game you have a score of 570,000 with 3 Obvious Error Deaths
In the first game the average is 275,000 per obvious error death.
In the second game the average is 190,000 per obvious error death.
So despite the much lower score the 275,000 game is actually the stronger game since that person only had one bonehead move, while the 570k person had 3 bonehead moves in the game.
So here are my basic rules for what constitute an obvious error death.
1) 99.9% of Elevator Deaths are obvious error deaths. The only exception to this rule would be if Donkey Kong kept on throwing long spring after long spring after long spring, and there is less than 500 on the timer. If you get hit by an elevator it not be so obvious that it was your fault. Of course a situation like that only comes along in 1 in a 1,000 boards.
2) Getting 1/16th by Donkey Kong while climbing a ladder. There is an exception to this rule. If there is a fireball on the same girder as you than I could see a person climbing the ladder, and taking the 1/16th chance as the odds of getting killed by the fireball by staying there maybe greater than 1/16th of a chance.
3) Getting stuck on a Pie Factory ladder, and being hit by a pie.
4) Running into one of Donkey Kong's barrels that he drops straight down
5) screwing up a basic jumping combo with the barrels.
6) Falling through one of the holes in the rivets or just falling off the rivets.
7) Jumping into Donkey Kong while point pressing or jumping into a fireball while point pressing.
There are many others. These are just a few examples.
Now here are what I call subtle error deaths. Using the Staal pattern when there was a good chance at getting the star pattern. Or just going a certain direction that walls you off. These in my opinion are not obvious deaths because you had a decent chance of surviving despite it not being the best method.
The reason I feel this stat would be useful to some people is because it would give a person a feeling of being more in control of a game that at times can be uncontrollable. It would also help people to focus on their errors they commit during the game.
So hopefully this helps someone.
