After entering 1 word in the search field, the sorting algorithm doesn't display popular clothes with more words in the name

Szeloba · July 11, 2023, 1:07pm

Hello,

I have the following problem, which has not yet been reported and which is killing my idea.exe Roblox group. After entering only one word in the search field, the sorting algorithm favors clothes containing only this one word in the name, it does not display many popular clothes (or places them much lower in the search results) that, apart from this one word, also contain other words describing the clothes. This is a new bug in the search algorithm, a bug that was not described here Problem with sorting clothes in Roblox catalog (because then this problem didn’t exist yet) so I decided to report it as a new bug.

Reproduction Steps

Open the Roblox catalog and select Classic Clothing, for example Pants
Enter in the search box one word you are interested in, for example “mafia” or “frog”
Note that the algorithm favors clothes with only that one word in the name, despite the fact that they are not very popular, they are often freshly loaded or stolen assets. Notice that the popular clothes with other words in the name in addition to the word entered in the search box, are pushed down in the search results or even not displayed at all (for example, this outfit 🐸 Kawaii Frog Overalls - Roblox will not be displayed at all when you enter the word “frog” in the search box but in the first 20 rows there will be a lot clothes with little or even 0 likes just because they got named “frog” without using other words).

Expected Behavior

I want the algorithm to search for clothes that have all the words entered in the search box in the name, but I want it to also find popular and liked clothes that have other words in the name in addition to the searched word. I want the algorithm not to place clothes with 0-10 likes above clothes with hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of likes just because the latter contain more words in the name. I don’t want to be forced to describe clothes with only one word so that they appear in search results. Often people enter one word in the search box, for example, the word “frog”, because they want to buy something frog-themed and they don’t know yet whether they want a dress, overalls, a hoodie, a suit or a school uniform or something else, and with the current algorithm they have no chance to see my clothes because I tried to describe these clothes in the best possible way.

Bug characteristics

The problem probably appeared in June because at the end of June I noticed that the level of sales began to drop drastically. The sharp decline in sales of my clothes almost completely ruined my group, the sales fell more than 5-fold (and the level of sales was already ruined by another bug, described here Problem with sorting clothes in Roblox catalog), few people find my clothes and my group now. On the other hand, less popular clothes are favored and most often these are assets stolen from the original creators! I will add that after entering 2 words in the search box, the problem is the same as described here Problem with sorting clothes in Roblox catalog, i.e. a lot of clothes are displayed not related to the words entered into the search box, for example, after typing “frog overalls” in the search box, the pants created by me 🐸 Kawaii Frog Overalls - Roblox appear in the 24th row and the higher rows are occupied by a huge amount of clothes like “Christams overalls”, “Rainbow overalls”, Halloween overalls" and so on.

Example 1

After entering the word “frog”, the algorithm searches mainly for clothes described as “frog” without using other words, so very often it shows clothes that are not very popular or have even 0 likes, also stolen and freshly uploaded to the catalog. My outfit named as “Kawaii Frog Overalls” 🐸 Kawaii Frog Overalls - Roblox, very popular so far and having 25.4K likes, is not showing up at all! On my 27 inch screen, the roblox catalog shows 100 rows and these pants don’t show up in any of them while the first 20 rows have a huge amount of clothes with 0-10 likes and a huge amount of stolen assets!

Example 2

After entering the word “mafia”, the algorithm mainly searches for clothes described as “mafia” without using other words, so it shows clothes that are not popular, have very few likes or even 0 likes, freshly uploaded to the catalog and often stolen just because they contain only the word “mafia”. Popular clothes with other words in the name are placed very low in the catalog or not displayed at all. Pants I created Black Casual Mafia Formal Business Suit [-] - Roblox with 1.3K likes show up in row 22 on a 27" screen just because in the name, apart from the word “mafia”, there are also other words describing these pants and clothes with very few likes (often freshly uploaded to the store or stolen) are placed much higher in the catalog because they contain only the word “mafia” in their name.

Szeloba · July 17, 2023, 2:40pm

Another example. These are the first pages of search results after typing “axolotl” in the search box:

As you can see in the screenshots above, the algorithm prioritizes shirts named only with this one word. So on the front pages there are often unpopular clothes, freshly uploaded to the catalog (even with 0 likes), also stolen, and my shirt with 2.2K likes is displayed in the 100th, last row on a 27-inch screen! Does no one really see the problem? Should popular clothes be removed from search results just because I named them, for example, “Axolotl Blue Overalls”?

I will be very grateful for your help because this bug together with the bug described here Problem with sorting clothes in Roblox catalog has completely ruined my group, a group that received Verified Badge due to popularity.

Szeloba · July 18, 2023, 3:48pm

Are bugs reported on this forum then reported to the engineers? Is it intentional that typing one word into the search box causes the algorithm to search for clothes with a one-word name? Shouldn’t it be that the more words we enter, the more we narrow down the search results because the algorithm searches for clothes that contain (in their name or description) all the words we entered, but should not exclude clothes that also contain some additional words? Typing one word in the search box narrows down the search results to clothes with one-word names, which is pointless.

Qxual · July 18, 2023, 7:23pm

I asked about it directly to one of the staff members on the devforum and they informed me that they made a more complex algorithm. It looks like it’s intentional than it is a bug and there is nothing we can do about it anymore.

Szeloba · July 18, 2023, 8:12pm

I can’t understand it. After all, when someone enters one word in the search box, for example the word “frog”, it is because they want to search for clothes with a frog motif and do not yet know whether they want a dress, or overalls or a hoodie or something else, they want to look at clothes with a frog motif to choose something that will suit them. But the algorithm will only show clothes that have been named as a frog. When such a person wants a dress with a frog motif, then she/he will enter 2 words (I will skip the fact that then the second bug reported earlier will find dresses unrelated to the frog motif) narrowing down the search results and that’s how it should work. Displaying clothes with a one-word name just because someone entered 1 word in the search box seems pointless to me. Thank you for your answer though.

Qxual · July 20, 2023, 7:23pm

The thing is my main issue is not with clothes showing only clothes with one word, though that’s a problem as well, but the fact that random clothes are shown which have nothing to do with popularity or sales are the main reason that my sales have drastically decreased. I do not know what the new “complex algorithm” is all about now. However, I believe this issue is also occurubg with the whole catalog in general, including UGC, not only 2D clothing. I do not know where ROBLOX is headef with this but I personally do not see 2D clothing as sustainable as before. We need more people to speak out on this. I am not surprised though since the search algorithm appears to be nonfunctional/broken for games as shown in another thread.

Szeloba · July 20, 2023, 8:17pm

That’s true, but the last change was like killing a dying man. I wrote more in the thread about killing popular games by this mystical algorithm. In the second thread about the bug reported in November last year (Problem with sorting clothes in Roblox catalog), I showed the absurdity - a dress with 42K likes is placed by a mystical algorithm in row 79 of search results, while in the upper rows and even in the first row there are copies of this dress uploaded by asset thieves and clothes completely unrelated to search results. However, displaying clothes that have only 1 word entered by the user in the name is also a big problem. Pending robux has dropped 200-400 times since November, my group has been completely ruined. After all, when the user enters only one word (and it probably often happens) it is because he/she is not yet sure what type of clothes he/she wants to buy, it’s just ridiculous that the algorithm displays mainly clothes with a one-word name (often unpopular, stolen, freshly loaded) and skips popular clothes with, for example, 2-3 words in the name. See what is displayed after typing “mafia” in the search box (I created a lot of mafia clothes that were liked and popular and had thousands of likes and now one of them appears in the 34th row and the rest of the clothes do not appear at all, the algorithm completely excluded them from the search results!):

Isn’t that ridiculous? Hundreds of clothes named “mafia” and many of them low quality, even with 0 likes, stolen, freshly uploaded and my clothes with thousands of likes do not appear there at all. I could start naming clothes with one word but I’d have to be a bit clairvoyant and guess whether it’s better to name the black suit as “mafia” or maybe as a “suit”, but then the person typing “black suit” will not find my suit anymore, for me the way the algorithm works now is just ridiculous and the fact that it’s not a bug, it’s a feature - is just demotivating.

Szeloba · July 27, 2023, 4:06pm

Today I noticed that pending robux in my group started to increase, I checked and this bug has already been fixed! The algorithm no longer prioritizes one-word names after entering one word in the search box, so when I type “mafia”, the pants I created are even in the first row! This has given me a lot of hope and I’m so glad it was identified as a problem and fixed!

Szeloba · July 27, 2023, 5:43pm

I guess I was happy too quickly because I just realized that in one account the algorithm sorts the clothes properly and in the other accounts it doesn’t, I really don’t know how the algorithm works anymore.

This is how it looks like in one account:

And this is how it looks like in other accounts:

How to explain that? Clearing cookies did not change this strange situation. Unfortunately, only in 1 of the accounts checked so far, the algorithm works correctly and in other accounts, unfortunately, it works incorrectly again - it mainly displays clothes named with one-word names after typing one word in the search box.

Edit: I found another 2 accounts where the algorithm is displaying search results correctly, so the small increase in pending robux is because a small percentage of accounts have search results displayed correctly. But I still don’t understand why it works differently in some accounts (out of 13 accounts tested, 10 accounts have search results prioritizing single word names and 3 accounts have the correct way of sorting results).

Szeloba · August 6, 2023, 9:41am

Unfortunately, this bug (or feature) is back in all accounts, and again the algorithm favors in all acoounts one-word names after entering one word in the search box. It happened about 2 days ago.

After entering “mafia” word in the search box, the mafia suit created by me (having 2.1 likes), shows up in row 36:

Another mafia suit created by me (having 2.5K likes) appears in row 87 because I named it as “mafia suit” and not just “mafia”:

Many mafia clothes I’ve made don’t show up in the search results at all even though they have hundreds and thousands of likes, while in the top search results there are tons of clothes named with one word - as mafia:

…and so on.
So in the top rows of the search results there are such shirts:

and many other not very popular clothes, also stolen assets, named as “mafia”. This bug almost completely killed my group and this bug is back. It’s discouraging how everything is random in the algorithm and it’s not worth enjoying a temporary improvement because the algorithm is like a kaleidoscope. And if it’s not a bug but a feature, it’s all the more discouraging and ridiculous at the same time.