Rather than calculating the absolute minimal path movement to complete the WHOLE slider, would connecting the sliderticks within the sliderball area fix the weirdly shaped sliders? Then connecting to the sliderend would use the sliderfollowcircle.
The path from slidertick to slidertick doesn't have to be within the sliderball, what's important is that when the sliderball passes over a slidertick, the cursor must be inside of it.
This wouldn't overrate fast repeat sliders because they have no ticks, and seems fair since that's pretty much how people play sliders (see Granger's post), you can't skip sliderticks without breaking combo unlike sliderends (thus sliderball instead of sliderfollowcircle), and weird sliders are harder to play when they have more ticks.
The path from slidertick to slidertick doesn't have to be within the sliderball, what's important is that when the sliderball passes over a slidertick, the cursor must be inside of it.
This wouldn't overrate fast repeat sliders because they have no ticks, and seems fair since that's pretty much how people play sliders (see Granger's post), you can't skip sliderticks without breaking combo unlike sliderends (thus sliderball instead of sliderfollowcircle), and weird sliders are harder to play when they have more ticks.