Someone has to say it.
Pretty much the same people always win LOTY and LDC. Here are the top 3 designers in every contest for the past 5 years. If listed twice, the designer placed in the top 3 with 2 separate levels. "/" denotes joint winners:
2023 LOTY: NieSch, Armani/Icho, (3rd place TBA)
LDC 29: Armani,
kaywhyn, Icho
LDC 28: Kingshadow, Armani, Simon
2022 LOTY: Armani, Icho, Icho
LDC 27: Simon, Simon, NeiSch
LDC 26: NeiSch, NeiSch, Armani
LDC 25: Armani, Icho, (no 3rd place)
2021 LOTY: Nessy, Icho, Icho
LDC 24:
tan x dx, Icho, Kingshadow
LDC 23: Kingshadow, Armani, (no 3rd place)
LOTY 2020: DireKrow, Armani, Icho
LDC 22: Armani, Nessy, (no 3rd place)
LDC 21: Icho, Armani/Armani, (no 3rd place)
LOTY 2019: Icho/Namida, Crane, Icho
LDC 20: DireKrow, Armani, (no 3rd place)
LDC 19: Icho/
Flopsy, Armani, (no 3rd place)
LDC 18: Namida, Crane, (no 3rd place)
I've put the designers that only appear once in bold. There are only 3 unique designers out of a possible 51 (top 3 multiplied by 17 contests)
Here's the final stats for all 51 award slots:
Armani, Icho: 13 appearances each
NieSch: 4 appearances
Simon: 3 appearances
Crane, Kingshadow, Namida, Nessy: 2 appearances each
Flopsy, kaywhyn, tan x dx: 1 appearance each
(3rd place not awarded 7 times)
Firstly, congratulations to Armani and Icho for setting and maintaining the high standards of level creation that these contests enjoy - let's be clear that the quality of their levels is not in question here at all, nor is the value of their participation!
However, these 2 designers account for more than half of the total possible appearances in the top 3 of all contests. Honestly,
we can probably be doing more to make sure other designers get a look-in, particularly when it comes to making it into the top 3.
In fairness, the actual 1st-place winner of each contest is more or less different each time, but the point here is that
the pool itself is often very similar. This is particularly true when looking at the final round of each contest; it's nearly always the same 4 or 5 designers every time, with maybe the occasional wild card from someone who made a particularly good level that contest.
What I'd suggest is adapting the format of these contests slightly with the goals of (a) encouraging more participation, and (b) increasing the likelihood of different designers making it into the top 3. I'm sure that Armani and Icho will always be strong contenders, and rightly so, but we need to see other names up there more often than we are doing at the moment, otherwise more and more people will tune out, and this will only exacerbate/perpetuate the problem.
My hope is that the following suggestions will open the contests up a bit and ensure that, even if Armani and Icho always make the top 3, maybe that 3rd person will be someone different each time, and more designers will benefit from the encouragement of having had one of their levels make it to the finals.
On to the suggestions:![lemming :lemming:](https://www.lemmingsforums.net/Smileys/lemmings/lemming.gif)
There were 7 contests in which a 3rd place wasn't awarded. Awarding Gold (1st), Silver (2nd) and Bronze (3rd) ought to be standard in every contest - this alone would ensure that more designers get to see their name in the top 3 slots.
![lemming :lemming:](https://www.lemmingsforums.net/Smileys/lemmings/lemming.gif)
In the case that 2 of the same designer's levels make it into the top 3, either choose only the one that got the most votes or (probably better) count them as a joint award for that slot, and award the next slot to the designer with the next highest amount of votes. Or, to put it another way, we're awarding the designer rather than the individual levels in this particular case, and so we can place equal recognition on both levels. However it ends up being formulated,
the end result should be that no fewer than 3 designers end up in the final round. Example:
Armani gets 8 votes for Level A and is awarded Gold (1st place)
Icho gets 7 votes for Level B, 6 votes for Level C and is awarded Silver (2nd place) for both levels combined
(SomeoneElse) gets 5 votes for Level D and is awarded Bronze (3rd place)
Better yet, only allow 1 entry per designer per contest, with the possible exception of LOTY. (EDIT: This suggestion has been updated in response to Armani's post)
![lemming :lemming:](https://www.lemmingsforums.net/Smileys/lemmings/lemming.gif)
If keeping the "3 rule" format, allow all 3 winners of the previous contest to choose 1 rule each, rather than the top spot winner choosing all 3. This in itself would likely incentivise more participation; making it into the top 3 suddenly means more, and a designer who manages to make it that far is rewarded for doing so. This is particularly meaningful when there are only 1 or 2 votes in the difference between the top 3, which is sometimes the case.
![lemming :lemming:](https://www.lemmingsforums.net/Smileys/lemmings/lemming.gif)
Alternatively, the "3 rule" format could either be reduced to 2 rules (maintain an element of choice whilst reducing workload and possible confusion for participants) or scrapped altogether in favour of a single rule (easiest to follow/maintain and could help make contests shorter, so they could be run more often and therefore provide more chances to win, but could also have the undesired side-effect of reducing participation due to lack of interest in the rule).
![lemming :lemming:](https://www.lemmingsforums.net/Smileys/lemmings/lemming.gif)
In many cases, LDC levels that placed in the top 3 also end up in the LOTY top 3 for that year. Perhaps implement a contest entry condition preventing the same level from entering 2 different contests. The level has already been awarded an accolade previously - giving it another award, whilst perhaps deserving, prevents other designers/levels from receiving recognition. Preventing this is an easy way to ensure that different levels (and, perhaps therefore different designers) get a fresh chance with each contest. And, if the same designer
is awarded a LOTY top 3 place for a
different level than their LDC top 3 place, it's a chance for that designer to be recognised for more of their work, arguably making the award more valuable to them personally. Conversely, perhaps we deem it necessary to bestow more recognition on a particularly good LDC winner. One way to achieve this would be to have a separate "Contest Level Of The Year" award, which pits all of that year's contest winners against each other for one final vote.
I hope these suggestions are useful. If nothing else, it might be worth trialling a few of them for the next few contests and see if it amounts to at least an uptick in participation. Or, if people don't think there's a problem with the way things are now and this just comes across as complaining, that's fine. Feel free to ignore this post and I'll go back to ignoring the Forum contests (it's not as if I haven't got plenty else to be getting on with!)
![Wink-Tongue ;P](https://www.lemmingsforums.net/Smileys/lemmings/winktounge.gif)
But seriously,
I'm making these suggestions in the hopes that it might benefit other designers who are discouraged from participating due to thinking there's no chance of winning, or even simply due to confusion regarding the format. There's actually very little for me to gain here personally, I'm just being a voice.