Why a brand-new score starts cautious.
A single test session is a snapshot, not a trend. Until a player has logged enough of them, their score is discounted toward a conservative estimate rather than treated as a settled number.
Shown after 1 session
A snapshot isn't a trend
One good or one bad test day can swing a raw score more than it should. A player having their best sprint ever in their very first session on the platform hasn't proven that this is their real level — they've produced one data point. Confidence Discounting exists so that single data point doesn't get treated with the same weight as a settled, well-established score.
Ramping up as real data comes in
As a player logs more sessions, the discount eases and their score moves toward full weight. The system isn't guessing less about them over time in some abstract sense — it's that there's genuinely more evidence behind the number the more they've actually been tested.
Visible, not hidden
A discounted score isn't presented as if it were a finished number. It shows up on a player's profile with a note like "based on 2 of 3 sessions" alongside the score itself, so nobody — coach, player, or parent — mistakes an early estimate for something more settled than it is.