judging of combos
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As previosly said it might be better to have seperate discussion for combos. As marie stated it might be good to give more points to a combo if it generates more suspense by having little tricks in there which can be used for resting or just transitioning in an easy way. I think the point bonus for combos should depend more on how intense the combo is (how much of the combo is hard tricks and how much is easy transition or resting tricks) than on how long the combo is. This will of course vary pretty extremly for riders of different skill levels. For some riders its defenitly harder to do tricks in a line(only 1 or 2 revs in between) which should be rewarded while at a top level doing varialrolls/xrolls/rollingwraps doesnt have that much suspense because they are all basic tricks for that riders. It still should be rewarded a bit because you still risk the whole combo if you fail at the end. Right now this is not taken into account because as long as you dont break your combo youre not punished difficulty wise eg. you could do a rollingwrap backroll after each hard trick to basicly reset which goes against the spirit of combo. Also I think it should be taken into account more how hard it is to add more elements. For example a long coast combo gets progressivle harder even if you add resting tricks like normal coasting because you lose more and more speed. What is your opinion on this?
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I personally think this could make the combo/no combo discussion much easier. I like the idea of a combo being all tricks added together rather than trying to identify artificial breaks.
But obviously a combo with lots of tyre hopping (assuming we would embrace the concept fully and not break combos anymore) or lots of rolling wraps at high level is not nice to watch and also way less difficult. I'd love to explore this concept further, not of breaking combos but of assessing their value by the trick combinations in them and how they are arranged. You mentioned this as a concept in style, Ben. But maybe it could even be a concept in difficulty. In my view, it definitely affects it.
One issue that I see if we were to embrace this is the last trick. Maybe that should really be just one trick in this case or one transition (trick into trick) - not a combo? I remember Mimo's combo being broken by chief judge in Bemidji because of 1ft riding, which isn't even one of the usual "combo breakers". But obviously it was a very easy trick for him. But how do you judge that? And how do you know if a rider is basically relaxing? So maybe it should just be allowed to do trick into trick? Again, just an idea.
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You could allow set ups - e.g. a rolling wrap before a more difficult roll that would just not be judged. So a rider would have to name the trick or transition? But it would obviously mean no more really large combos which might be a loss too?
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I think from a viewing experience it would be better to have just a single trick or transition (so one trick than a transition to another trick but no more). I always try to make the combos for the last trick not to long but it would probably be harder to just do the entire prelim run in a combo but that just doesnt feel right. I think if you do smth like that you have to balance it out somewhere else because it would affect rider very disproportionatly
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@marie also this what not what I meant. I dont think that has to do anything with each other. A combo can be really hard but still not be that interesting of a combo. I just meant how much sense the combo makes in itself and that its not just random hard tricks
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@Ben - you mean for the last trick - a single trick or just one transition?
Oh I didn't mean that everyone should do a prelim as one combo. Definitely not. But I don't see why we would need a "break the combo" rule if it got judged lower anyways if you end up mixing easier tricks. That's all I meant.
Some tricks also start from riding or go into riding and that can look cool as well.
I'm intrigued -how does a combo that only consists of hard tricks not make sense? Do you have an example?
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Lets say you do 540sectret side then withouth hopping or riding do a triple flip thats a combo but it doesnt really make any sense to do those tricks in a combo
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I think your idea of suspense kind of nailed it for me. Lots of idling, hopping, easy tricks in between - all kill the hype.
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Aw okay - I personally would like to see that :D
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It's unusual and comes as a surprise
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But I think there might be two different things here - how combos influence the difficulty score (hard tricks in a row create high difficulty) and how they influence the style score (I posted your ideas in the chat by the way). Would you agree?
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Yes obviosly but what I meant in the earlier discussion only influences the style score
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Just to check, this discussion thread is about difficulty right?
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Sorry, this doesn't automatically update for me.