SQL - Overall average Points - sql

Question

I have a table like this:
[challenge_log]
User_id | challenge | Try | Points
==============================================
1 1 1 5
1 1 2 8
1 1 3 10
1 2 1 5
1 2 2 8
2 1 1 5
2 2 1 8
2 2 2 10
I want the overall average points. To do so, i believe i need 3 steps:
Step 1 - Get the MAX value (of points) of each user in each challenge:
User_id | challenge | Points
===================================
1 1 10
1 2 8
2 1 5
2 2 10
Step 2 - SUM all the MAX values of one user
User_id | Points
===================
1 18
2 15
Step 3 - The average
AVG = SUM (Points from step 2) / number of users = 16.5
Can you help me find a query for this?

Answer 1

You can get the overall average by dividing the total number of points by the number of distinct users. However, you need the maximum per challenge, so the sum is a bit more complicated. One way is with a subquery:
select sum(Points) / count(distinct userid)
from (select userid, challenge, max(Points) as Points
from challenge_log
group by userid, challenge
) cl;
You can also do this with one level of aggregation, by finding the maximum in the where clause:
select sum(Points) / count(distinct userid)
from challenge_log cl
where not exists (select 1
from challenge_log cl2
where cl2.userid = cl.userid and
cl2.challenge = cl.challenge and
cl2.points > cl.points
);

Answer 2

Try these on for size.
Overall Mean
select avg( Points ) as mean_score
from challenge_log
Per-Challenge Mean
select challenge ,
avg( Points ) as mean_score
from challenge_log
group by challenge
If you want to compute the mean of each users highest score per challenge, you're not exactly raising the level of complexity very much:
Overall Mean
select avg( high_score )
from ( select user_id ,
challenge ,
max( Points ) as high_score
from challenge_log
) t
Per-Challenge Mean
select challenge ,
avg( high_score )
from ( select user_id ,
challenge ,
max( Points ) as high_score
from challenge_log
) t
group by challenge

Answer 3

After step 1 do
SELECT USER_ID, AVG(POINTS)
FROM STEP1
GROUP BY USER_ID

Answer 4

You can combine step 1 and 2 into a single query/subquery as follows:
Select BestShot.[User_ID], AVG(cast (BestShot.MostPoints as money))
from (select tLog.Challenge, tLog.[User_ID], MostPoints = max(tLog.points)
from dbo.tmp_Challenge_Log tLog
Group by tLog.User_ID, tLog.Challenge
) BestShot
Group by BestShot.User_ID
The subquery determines the most points for each user/challenge combo, and the outer query takes these max values and uses the AVG function to return the average value of them. The last Group By tells SQL to average all the values across each User_ID.