[Corey]

Jeremy, I was in closer agreement to you than Ken and Tony. However I do believe that there are SO many exceptions and the fact that you disagree with my example should show that the ADD system can not be a one size fits all way of measuring difficulty. Compare osis to toe kick. Osis is easier and that is a fact!

[sen]

The ADD system was developed to class the difficulty of tricks. The ADD system was built by creating components that make up each trick.

I think we all agree on this. What we don't agree on is whether or not these components actually do what was originally intended: Show difficulty. I don't feel they adequately do this. A trick is not merely the sum of it's ADDs. Does it work in lot's of cases? Yes. No one denied that. What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't work in all cases, and therefore ADDs=/=difficulty no matter what it may have been designed to do and subsequently named. This seems to have been the common consensus for the eight years I've been involved with Footbag so I'm really not sure why this conversation is happening, except for the fact that Jeremy decided to nit pick a random comment of Ken's while Ken was trying to answer a question.

[Jeremy]

But the question is; how many exceptions are there as a percentage of the total comparisons that could be made? The add system works like this;

Every move that finishes on a toe stall but has more components than toe stall is worth more adds.
Every move that finishes on a mirage but has more components than mirage is worth more adds. etc.

There are plenty of different ways of making these kinds of sweepings answers where you demonstrate a large clump of comparisons that are accurate, but hardly any comparisons where you can demonstrate that a large clump of comparisons (rather than isolated examples) are exceptions.

You say that there are "too many" exceptions - but how many is "too many?" 10? 100? 1000? 1%? 10% 50%

It's easily within our ability to actually quantify this debate, and to be able to say x% of comparisons between moves are exceptions.

Of course there are two approaches, and the clump examples is a theoretical approach, which values each individual move equally. On the other hand there are plenty of moves in footbag that are never or very rarely hit. It could be (and I suspect the case) that there are many more exceptions within the rare moves than the common moves. This would mean the add system is less reliable in those circumstances (although I think still very reliable), but we can take a pragmatic approach and say, generally when I watch footbag, does the add system work for classifying difficulty. This was the experiment I proposed. Comparing the add value and difficulty of moves people are actually hitting, and seeing how reliable the add system is then.

I think both a pragmatic approach and a theoretical approach will demonstrate that over 95% of comparisons between footbag moves correlate "real" difficulty with add value. However this will only happen if you use arbitrary methods for selecting large amounts of moves to compare, rather than cherry picking the moves you think will cause exceptions.

95% means that there will be an exception in 1 in 20 comparisons, and I think that would demonstrate a reasonable reliability of the system.

[Outsider]

#1. Personally, I like debating "Difficulty" and "the ADD system", etc.

#2. I basically agree with Jeremy.

#3. To go back to the root of this argument, the question of Pogo -- as I recall it, the theory/rule addendum that was proposed to explain why a move could technically be symposium but not be awarded an ADD for symposium was that in the case of a CLIPPER-SET mirage (stepping set), the dexterity isn't a FULL dexterity. For a dexterity to earn the symposium ADD it should be a full dexterity. A toe-set mirage is a fuller dexterity than a clipper-set mirage (in toe-mirage, the dexing leg must move under and then over the bag -- in toe-set illusion, the dexing leg moves over and then under the bag -- in clipper-set mirage, the leg only has to move over the bag, it never has to pass under the bag, so its not a full dexterity). This distinction works equally well for why symposium butterfly would be denied a 4th ADD for symposium, but Superfly gets the symposium ADD (between the two dexes in superfly, there is at least one full dex in there, or, anyway, the dexing leg moves both over and under the bag -- same applies to symposium furious set -- leg moves over and under, so there is a full dex in there somewhere...) I suppose this still leaves open to debate Symposium Same-Side Mirage (a.k.a. Symposium Pixie)... I don't know the answer to that one. I don't have ALL the answers, but, I think that was how the question of a Pogo-Set's ADD value was settled...
(edit [this is like, the 9th one])... I just realized that the whole "only full dexes get symposium adds" thing leaves Big Apple (symposium mobius) out in the cold... I hadn't thought of that. Again, I can't remember if there is an explanation for this... maybe because the dex isn't a set, its down-time, and also not the first component of the trick... I don't know. Damn...

#4. Well, actually, I don't want to get personal here, so, I'll leave it at 3.

ps -(edit)- the ADD system may be imperfect, but it has a few things going for it, and perhaps the most important of them is that its fairly easy to apply. In all these years that people have criticized the ADD system, very few (if any) good alternatives have been suggested, and, any really good alternative is going to be pretty complex, and very subjective (and potentially subject to regular review and change - that could get annoying. Imagine -- "this moved used to have a difficulty rating of 6, but now its 5.5 -- next year it may be reviewed again and determined to be 5.75..." -- that sounds like a pain in the butt to me). How complex do we really want to make our scoring system at this time? Its not as though we have an audience of tens of thousand, or corporate sponsorships and television commercial deals that we're fighting over. Until that day comes, I say lets not strain ourselves with the scoring of individual moves - lets keep it simple.

[Jeremy]

Thanks Jon.

To add to what you've been saying, I think it's important to note the difference between "accuracy" and "precision". Accuracy is how close a measurement is to its "true" value. Precision is how specific the measurement is. For example if I were to say that I'm in my mid twenties that is a completely accurate statement, but not very precise. On the other hand if I were to say that I'm 38 years, 224 days, 13 hours, 23 minutes and 3 seconds old, that is a very precise statement, but completely inaccurate.

The add system attempts to categorise thousands of moves into less than 10 categories. To do this it obviously has to be blunt and general, not precise. If it distinguished the difficulty between mirage and pixie it would have to have almost as many categories as moves. A lack of precision has no bearing on the accuracy of a measurement or system for measurements, and I think the add system remains the system used because its lack of precision makes it much simpler.

[sidekick]

Firstly, to stay on the first topic- Phoenix > Pdx torque > Spinning DLO > Rpt

Secondly, to jump to the second topic- I like way you put that Jeremy

Thirdly, to continue the second topic:

I also believe that adds are a good for relating footbag to the general populace. When I street preform it is much easier to relate difficult tricks to audiences when I tell them a brief explanation of it's components.

Example:

"I am going to show you a 4 point trick- this one is called vortex. It starts on an inside stall (I catch the bag on my foot), except that stall is behind your support leg (wrap the bag to clipper position). I set the bag off my foot (set bag into hand) and do a 180 turn, and then the bag goes under my leg (mime the sequence with the bag in hand) and then turn to catch it where I started!"

sometimes I go into a little more detail and say that the points describe the amount of components a trick has between the stalls, and when we stall the bag, it's the end of a trick.

I am a big supporter of being able to relate footbag to people who haven't seen freestyle before, and the easier it is for them to understand the better.

I also think that the difficulty of footbag tricks on a more subtle level are very relative to the player's body type, style, form, and flexibility

I always try to remind myself how hard clipper stall was when I first started footbag, and now it is so easy that sometimes I don't feel like I am really doing anything more than catching something with my hand. I worked hard for a long time to get those two components to feel that way, and it is the base of more or less half of my trick selection now, and I feel is well worth the two additional degrees of difficulty from an inside kick.

[cd]

Yeah, I think the most useful thing about ADDs is that it breaks moves down into a handful of common elements for beginners to learn. New players/non-players only need to understand a few building blocks and they can begin to "see" with footbag players' eyes. (One of the most common complaints about the sport is that people think all of the tricks look the same.)

If you tried to make the ADD system much more precise in terms of difficulty, it would just become horribly obtuse and unwieldy.

Maybe the word "difficulty" should be taken out of ADD. Replace it with "density" and simplify the system a bit. Make it strictly about how much "stuff" is in a trick. It could still be a fair measure of difficulty, but people would be less inclined to get hung up on the fact that it isn't a perfect system.


By the way, my Shred Global submission is all fearless shuffle.

[Jazzkid]

^ and probably a 6 add too

[Frank_Sinatra]

Alright folks, I've split this off from new fearless combos.

Some of the posts over there were both on-topic and about this new topic. I tried to err on the side of people keeping their new tricks posted over there, but then it seemed like people reposting their new fearless would be easier than rearguing their points. So, if you feel you need to have your new fearless recorded over there, please repost in the new fearless combo thread.

[sen]

Thanks for the split Nathan.

I'd like to clarify my feelings on the ADD system. First, I feel that it works great for what I see it's use currently is in the sport. I feel difficulty is subjective and as has been mentioned is different based on body type, flexibility, comfortable sets, ect. Therefore, no system can accurately define the difficulty of any trick. I think we should stop trying to force ADD's to do this and stop correcting people when they say that ADDs do not equal difficulty. I love the idea of replacing difficulty with density because that is exactly what ADDs do.

Again, I am not saying in any way that we should get rid of the ADD system, or that another system should be developed to accurately show difficulty. I think ADDs work as a classification system.

[Frank_Sinatra]

I used to think about this a lot, and then I stopped really caring about it. Ultimately I had more questions than I had answers for, which I'll get to...

One big limitation of the ADD system is it is not capable, and was not designed, to measure the difficulty of links. And yet we all know that some tricks are harder to link together than others (whirl out of osis vs. whirl out of butterfly).

Another problem, as I see it, is with both x-dex and paradox. It seems like both "concepts" are not really concepts at all, they are just attempts to patch the fact that the ADD system ranks all dexes equally, even though we know some dexes are harder than others. For instance, you can do paradox mirage with no hop/turn, and really feel the double hip pivot. Or you can do a huge hop/turn, and it feels more like one hip pivot.

To Jeremy's example, there's a similar discrepancy between blur and stepping same side mirage. Or pixie far clipper and pixie same side clipper.

So, theoretically, you could fix this by assigning a "fullness" value for every possible dex, and then you'll start getting fractions and so on. And the difficulty system would look more like a continuous spectrum. Which we can all probably agree would be more precise, even if we disagree about how much precision is necessary or desirable.

But even if "dex fullness" is incorporated, there are a lot of other questions to answer:

What does one point in the system mean? Is a toe stall equal in difficulty to a miraging toe kick? Is the difference in difficulty between butterfly and pixie butterfly equivalent to the difference in difficulty between clipper and butterfly?

Would this system become all about dexes, and devalue dexless play? Does a system that ranks difficulty discourage creativity and self-expression?

I appreciate Jeremy's point that if you were to sample each level of ADDs, you'd find they are internally consistent, with few exceptions. I think its a valid point and worth bringing up. I'd be interested in seeing what would happen when combining levels of difficulty. Could you put two and three add tricks into one category and still feel like they are close, or would significant divergence emerge? What about fours and fives? After doing so, what is the explanation for the difference?

Would "flattening" the system (maybe to a five point scale) and arbitrarily assigning point values to each trick be better?

And what about the difficulty of particular links?

Who would be responsible for creating a new system? Are today's top players interested in this sort of stuff? Would it be worth anyone's time to have a new system?

Is the ADD system a problem, or are there better ways we can be spending our energy? (Like not letting all of our local scenes go to shit, and getting more new players to start than old players quit each year - and I don't have answers to these problems either.)

And that's basically where I gave up on thinking about the ADD system.

[Jeremy]

Thanks Nathan, I hope this didn't take too much time away from your studies and good luck In my message I did say that I thought there should be separate topics - one for xdex and one for adds. I also think "Shred symposium" is the appropriate place for this kind of discussion. I guess it doesn't really matter though.

I don't think anybody "forces" adds to judge difficulty. The only competitions where "difficulty" is specifically judged, it's done so by giving an overall subjective score. This includes sick 1/3, routines and circle comp. It's obvious when judging high level footbag events that a great deal of precision is needed, and so the add system was essentially abandoned for these kinds of competitions nearly 10 years ago. It exists now mainly as a relic and a general non-competitive tool. Shred 30 is, of course, an exception, but clearly a lesser event in most competitions (and it values uniqueness far higher than add value).

I also disagree about the subjectivity of difficulty, at least partially. While there are clearly lots of grey areas where difficulty is subjective, I think the majority of time it really is black and white. For example I don't think it's just a subjective opinion that butterfly is easier than dimwalk, which is in turn easier than pixie paradon. At the same time, determining which is easier out of pixie paradon and phoenix is a grey area, and they're worth the same amount of adds.

The fact that the add system is imprecise allows it to encompass most of the grey area. Moves that are of similar difficulty are usually of the same value. Moves that are harder are usually of a higher add value.

Of course there are exceptions, but as I've been trying to explain, these are a minority. The add system takes a view that I think is mostly correct, that the more you have to do in a footbag move the harder it is. This is definitely true with moves that are just added components of easier moves, and it's true most of time for different moves too. This makes it an objective system that works most of the time.


I insincerely apologise for making a bit of a post-modernist argument here, but I also think that a lot of the argument about adds not being the same as difficulty comes from a legitimate opposition to add hunting and people's footbag development being constrained by the add system. I'm sure all those who have defended the add system as a rating of difficulty in this topic would agree that deciding what to practice and how to develop your game based on the add system is foolish. The add system should be a tool for evaluation and understanding, not for direction.

[Allan]

First of all, I'd like to thank the participants in this discussion so far. I think maybe I'm actually learning something along the way.

It's obvious when judging high level footbag events that a great deal of precision is needed, and so the add system was essentially abandoned for these kinds of competitions nearly 10 years ago. It exists now mainly as a relic and a general non-competitive tool.

Actually, (I love starting sentences with "actually" imagine me saying it like a 10 year old girl) and I know that this is somewhat off-topic so forgive me (please?), at World's this past year, during the judges meeting, there was some discussion about resurrecting the old system. In saying that, I'm not trying to offer an opinion on whether or not I agree with this, but we did talk about it, and the idea got a positive reception from more than one person. Just sayin'

[Outsider]

I'm sure all those who have defended the add system as a rating of difficulty in this topic would agree that deciding what to practice and how to develop your game based on the add system is foolish. The add system should be a tool for evaluation and understanding, not for direction.

Good call. I'm not so sure, though. On the one hand, I might offer myself as living proof of a fan of the ADD System who has not necessarily been concerned with conventional measures of difficulty when developing my game (if I wasn't over the hill and totally knackered). But its not quite true... Again, ADDs have contributed to understanding of footbag (mine, at very least) and have often lead me to learn some of the different things I do. Then again, I wasn't looking for bigger ADDs, I was looking for different ADDs. That is, ADDs define particular categories of moves and divide footbag manuevers up into those categories. I've often looked to these categories for inspiration by asking "what else is there in such-and-such category of moves that is available to me?" Or, I've sometimes thought "I like this trick because it seems to fall outside of the categories, thus a trick that is hard to define." I think the sport has gotten all kinds of good things from ADDs, including food for thought.

at World's this past year, during the judges meeting, there was some discussion about resurrecting the old system. In saying that, I'm not trying to offer an opinion on whether or not I agree with this, but we did talk about it, and the idea got a positive reception from more than one person.

Yeah, there was Steve G. who brought this up, and then there was me who applauded. So, there was more than one... But, again, I think the reason suggested for bringing back "The Formula" judging (of which I'm also a fan) was for the sake of encouraging greater variety in competitions, or, at least (as some other old pros have said to me) to give competitors a better idea of what judges and the sport WANT from them in the 2 minute performance competition. That is, the ADD-counting formula of competition judging wouldn't necessarily be used to help determine the difficulty of a performance, but rather as a way to set some limits on how much credit a performer can get for certain categories of tricks, and thereby encourage those performers to use a broader range of trick categories in order to get the "credit" they need to score more highly.

In any case, all you ADD critics out there -- the door is open... consider and propose a new measure of difficulty -- it may also be useful in more ways than you initially imagine. But, please, when developing your ideas don't just consider the moves you like to hit, or you would like to hit. Be broader in your thinking and consider poor old Jon's moves too, and try to make sure your scoring system doesn't diss me too badly. Thanks.

[Jorden]

The ADD system is completely broken.
X-Dex is a patch to an already broken system.
Therefore, X-Dex is also broken.

It's really as simple as that.

JM

[Jeremy]

Care to put forward any kind of argument or evidence for your opinions?

[Outsider]

Care to put forward any kind of argument or evidence for your opinions?

Or provide an alternative that is really much better?...

(not just a minor improvement at the cost of having to learn some whole new system -- if we've got to learn some all-new system, it's got to be a BIG improvement, not some small cosmetic improvement.)

... my preference is for a system that doesn't require a committee to arbitrarily agree on a difficulty-value for individual tricks one-at-a-time, subject to change at next years meeting... but I suppose that is negotiable...

I was reading-up on the difficulty-rating system that is used in olympic gymnastics. It does require a governing body to rate the difficulty of moves case-by-case, subject to change later... but other than that I thought it provided a framework that is worth our consideration. But, I read that a year or two ago -- I don't remember much of it anymore -- I just remember feeling fairly impressed at that time. That info is all available on-line --- I think I found it on wikipedia...

[Jorden]

We should use decimals and levels to evaluate moves/skill levels like they do in gymnastics.

Level 1,2,3,4 acts like tiltless, guiltless, tripless, etc. but more accurate.

.1, .2 and .3 mean entry level moves to that new tier that are good enablers for moves in higher levels, so should be learned first. .4 to .9 represent more advanced moves in that category. Once the main elements in each level are mastered, the next level can be achieved. I believe this should also be regulated in the community. People are credited with reaching a certain quantifiable level (much like belts in martial arts) and can quantify their improvement by reaching higher levels of set skills. This way motivation is also maintained.

This would solve the problem of players not pacing themselves/jumping ahead and then quitting out of frustration or when their game completely falls apart from the ground up.

Please PM me if you want to comment on this idea (or better yet, help me develop it). I don't have the patience to sift through pages and pages of long-winded posts.

Jorden

[Rieferman]

I don't have the patience to sift through pages and pages of long-winded posts.

I think a more complicated system may be more "perfect" but I agree with Jeremy's original point that the existing system likely is doing just fine if someone actually analyzed it.

Rather than risk more long-winded posts that may bore Jorden (oh the horror!), how about some volunteers for performing the analysis that Jeremy suggests. (and before you say "why don't YOU volunteer Bob?!" I would suggest that one of our smart kickers that doesn't have a full time job/family/tons of responsibility would be doing a nice service to donate this time spent).

[PoisonTaffy]

I hope I'm not making an idiot out of myself, chiming into a debate that is very much beyond me. However, I haven't heard anyone mentioning this thought, so I thought I'd drop it in and see what you guys think.

Wouldn't you say that the ADD system does a much better job at measuring trick complexity rather than difficulty?

"Degrees of difficulty" rarely share the same level of difficulty with each other, not to mention combination of them, but they do indicate an added element to be performed, so a trick with less adds is almost always 'smaller' in terms of movements or actions required to perform compared to one with more adds.

For example, a 2 add trick may involve one super hard movement, and a 5 add trick may involve 2-3 very easy movements. In this case, the 2 add is more difficult, but less complex.

The system makes more sense to me when I think of it that way, and perhaps it can lose all those extra "patches" if it is agreed that it's not difficulty it should be measuring.