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SparkPlug
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Joined: 30 Jan 2004
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 10, 2004 11:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

by next friday will be fine Razz
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xyphic
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some more advanced stats would be a nice thing to have in the future, don't you think? I'd welcome all suggestions about how to improve them; either post here or PM me. Can't promise that they'll get done, but all suggestions about things to include in the stats will be considered.
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Strife777
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Joined: 18 Sep 2003
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One thing I'd like is a nod to whomever was the "first to solve" a puzzle...so maybe on your answer list, another column listing the first person to solve it and the timestamp? It'll give a nice little idea of where the stumpers are, and who got them.
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chantilly
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Joined: 16 Sep 2003
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, agreed, a 'first to solve' section would be cool.

I don't know whether it's possible but it would also be nice if the time is logged when a puzzle is reached and then again when it's solved thus giving the time spent on each puzzle which can be shown in personal stats. You could then name the person who solved each puzzle the quickest on the main stats page.

I would also like to see team names on the leaderboard as well (like in Challenge Ultima). It's useful to be able to see who is working with who.

As you can see, I like stats (and you did ask Razz )
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Titanium22
your chamber lye breeds fleas


Joined: 14 Sep 2003
Posts: 12253

PostPosted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 11:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

chantilly wrote:
I would also like to see team names on the leaderboard as well (like in Challenge Ultima). It's useful to be able to see who is working with who.

We are thinking about team names/entries for future contests - but with a maximum team membership of perhaps six (to encourage the spirit of true competition).

chantilly wrote:
You could then name the person who solved each puzzle the quickest on the main stats page.

That would be totally meaningless. Team members bang in answers for riddles they have not solved themselves (and often haven't even looked at), so the "quickest person" would purely reflect speed of typing.


T22
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xyphic
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm personally against limiting size of teams, but nothing's decided yet. What I'm thinking of doing with teams is instead of just showing what team somebody is in, making the leaderboard reflect the team rather than the individual (and probably link to a list of team members). Obviously if someone's not in a team, then they'd still appear on the leaderboard!

It would then be possible to have team stats - so you can see who gets the most solves, and who is the quickest, etc. As T22 said, with the current scheme it's meaningless to see who entered the answer quickest.
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CognosZeteo
You bull’s pizzle


Joined: 31 Jan 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

IMO teams should be registered and show up in stats as a unit under a team name. Afterall they work as one and advance as one, not as individuals. I tend to agree with T22 that there should be a limit to the size of teams or at least not be able to add new members half way through the contest.

What I would like to see in stats is a section that would show the leading solo players. The first solo to crack a puzzle, to finish the contest etc. Yeah I'm not asking for much, just a whole other set of stats to recognise the solos also. Razz

My half a penny's worth....
CognosZeteo Smile
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SparkPlug
Because I can


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 11:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Restricting team sizes and/or providing separate stats for solo players will just result in unreliable statsitics...

... what is to stop people from registering as a solo player, posting each question onto a private forum and having an army of people to help them solve...

... or having a dozen people registered as solo, but all progressing through the ranks at the same pace.
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chantilly
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Joined: 16 Sep 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Titanium22 wrote:
We are thinking about team names/entries for future contests - but with a maximum team membership of perhaps six (to encourage the spirit of true competition).


I can't see how limiting team membership will work. There's absolutely nothing stopping say a team of 12 registering as 2 teams of 6 and then working together anyway. How on earth would you police it? For all we know, even 'solo players' might have an army of family/work colleagues helping behind the scenes. And some teams tend to help each other/work together on difficult puzzles anyway so limiting teamsize would be totally pointless imo.

Titanium22 wrote:

chantilly wrote:
You could then name the person who solved each puzzle the quickest on the main stats page.

That would be totally meaningless. Team members bang in answers for riddles they have not solved themselves (and often haven't even looked at), so the "quickest person" would purely reflect speed of typing.


Yes, agreed. I hadn't thought of that angle. It's a shame that that happens but I don't suppose you can stop it as is the nature of teams wanting to catch up with what they've missed while not online.
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Titanium22
your chamber lye breeds fleas


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PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 11:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

chantilly wrote:
I can't see how limiting team membership will work. There's absolutely nothing stopping say a team of 12 registering as 2 teams of 6 and then working together anyway. How on earth would you police it? For all we know, even 'solo players' might have an army of family/work colleagues helping behind the scenes. And some teams tend to help each other/work together on difficult puzzles anyway so limiting teamsize would be totally pointless imo.

Indeed - we can't police team size for the very reason that people can work together *unofficially*, although that pretty quickly becomes apparant. So it would have to be a voluntary team limitation, and we would also have to take people (initially) on trust.

We could always look at banning teams who are blatantly working in cahoots, though...! Evil or Very Mad

But my personal thought is that it is far more rewarding to feel a real sense of competition. There is no sense of competition at all if you are part of a giant and experienced team, and therefore leave everyone else behind.

Hopefully, after BTB more people will be better equipped to stay near the top of the leaderboard - and that, plus *GENUINE* small teams, will also foster a much more competitive feel for new contests, as well as remove a degree of discouragement for people who have entered but are trailing.


T22
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xyphic
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 11:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's hard to define what any individual defines as 'competition' in a contest like this. For some, it might mean working alone. Others may derive their sense of competition from being part of a large team working against everyone else to be among the first to complete. In my opinion it would be unfair to put measures in place to try to define what 'competition' should mean for everyone, rather than letting them decide it for themselves.

If you start putting in restrictions on the size of team allowed then yes, people will find a way around it. In the end there's not an awful lot you can do about it. In my view putting in a restriction like that would only serve to encourage animosity.

Please everyone feel free to add your own thoughts on this discussion. If it becomes a hot topic of conversation I'll move the posts off into a dedicated thread.
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chantilly
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Joined: 16 Sep 2003
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 12:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Titanium22 wrote:
Indeed - we can't police team size for the very reason that people can work together *unofficially*, although that pretty quickly becomes apparant. So it would have to be a voluntary team limitation, and we would also have to take people (initially) on trust.


I really can't see the point in limiting team size and I think to try to do so forcefully would only damage the riddling community as a whole. A team is only as good as its individual members so a team of 12 doesn't necessarily pose any more threat than 2 teams of 6 (who are probably helping each other behind the scenes anyway). If you do as Cognos suggests and only have one entry per team in the leaderboard, then it would look far better for individuals on the leaderboard to only have one large team in front of them then several smaller teams.

Titanium22 wrote:

We could always look at banning teams who are blatantly working in cahoots, though...! Evil or Very Mad


Taking into account the smiley, I'm presuming you are joking but if not, a very big-brotherish attitude if you ask me. You'd be very surprised at how much inter-team collaboration and private deals were going on during PT1. If you banned teams that got caught doing that, then you probably wouldn't have any teams left at all. And what do you call working in cahoots? Does helping someone else via hints in PMs count? Where do you draw the line?

Titanium22 wrote:

But my personal thought is that it is far more rewarding to feel a real sense of competition. There is no sense of competition at all if you are part of a giant and experienced team, and therefore leave everyone else behind.


Absolute nonsense in my opinion. I've always felt a real sense of competition no matter what size team i've been in. During PT2, our little team of 5 (and on occasions less due to holidays) were up against IKs which must've numbered about 10 at times. I've also had experience of working with a large team (13 at its largest) and it really makes no difference to the sense of competition you get. It doesn't matter how many people you work with, the satisfaction comes from getting that first solve or seeing yourself/your team moving up the leaderboard.

Of course, we mustn't forget that to most people the competition element is secondary to the enjoyment obtained in actually solving the puzzles and the fun had whilst working with a team.

What does spoil the competition element is the constant bad feeling between some people when teams refuse to hint. It's perfectly natural to want to hold on to a lead when you get one as there's no guarantee that you're gonna keep it for long. Look at PT1 for example - at one stage our team was over a whole round in the lead but that lead soon deteriorated to a few questions when we hit on a tough one. So is it any wonder that teams like to keep a few answers (especially the tougher ones) to themselves?

Grrrr ... there was something else I was gonna say but it's totally gone out of my head now .... d'oh. Will have to save that for next time 8)
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Titanium22
your chamber lye breeds fleas


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 7:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

chantilly wrote:
Titanium22 wrote:

We could always look at banning teams who are blatantly working in cahoots, though...! Evil or Very Mad

Taking into account the smiley, I'm presuming you are joking but if not, a very big-brotherish attitude if you ask me.

Yes - I was joking...LOL! Very Happy

chantilly wrote:
Titanium22 wrote:

But my personal thought is that it is far more rewarding to feel a real sense of competition. There is no sense of competition at all if you are part of a giant and experienced team, and therefore leave everyone else behind.

Absolute nonsense in my opinion. I've always felt a real sense of competition no matter what size team i've been in. (...) It doesn't matter how many people you work with, the satisfaction comes from getting that first solve or seeing yourself/your team moving up the leaderboard.

Of course, we mustn't forget that to most people the competition element is secondary to the enjoyment obtained in actually solving the puzzles and the fun had whilst working with a team.

What does spoil the competition element is the constant bad feeling between some people when teams refuse to hint. It's perfectly natural to want to hold on to a lead when you get one as there's no guarantee that you're gonna keep it for long. Look at PT1 for example - at one stage our team was over a whole round in the lead but that lead soon deteriorated to a few questions when we hit on a tough one. So is it any wonder that teams like to keep a few answers (especially the tougher ones) to themselves?

You're right, there are two elements here - competition and also satisfaction/enjoyment. The first full length contest I entered was RP1 - I was new to many of the puzzling techniques at the time and was working alone with only hints on the forum to help me. There was no way I could ever have caught up with the leaders (who had started the contest long before me, in any case), but the sense of satisfaction when I managed to battle my way through some of those puzzles was enormous.

But working in a team is a great help. We all have different knowledge and experience which we can share, and indeed many good friendships have been forged through puzzling together. In fact, I doubt if Puzzletome would exist at all if we hadn't been part of a team working together on RP2 and Net Riddle - that was what made us decide to run our own contests.

And yes, I agree about hinting between teams or individuals - it's easy to hint on early puzzles when you are comfortably ahead, but not when someone is very close to your position and "snapping at your heels".

But coming back to the more general point raised in this thread, I think that "TeamX" (where applicable) rather than all the names of the team members on the Leaderboard is definitely the way to go - and one entry per team rather than many will also allow more leaders to be displayed, which will also help to foster more of a sense of competition.

Although, as Xyphic rightly said, "competition" means different things to different people.


T22
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Strife777
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 5:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My 2 cents on the whole "team" thing is it doesnt really matter past the point of possibly have a forum or are to privately discuss the contest with friends. Honestly, I don't think I would want to "offically" sign up with a team. Yes, I generally riddle with the same set of wonderful people, but life calls sometimes and I would feel like I'm totally leeching if I'm gone for a week and somehow am still considered part of a finishing team, if that makes sense? Like I haven't really had time to play the new Challenge Ultima...so other than helping out the team by glancing at ones they were stuck on once in awhile, I wouldn't want to even be considered associated with all the good work they've done, I wouldn't deserve it. The whole thing in a way is impossible to enforce, and would just cause headaches in the long run I'd imagine. If people want to be associated in a team, and have something under their names, or some sort of marking to let us know such...great. Listing stats by team name and taking away individuality...eh?

I'd much rather figure out a way to make a competition fair for individuals and groups alike, but thats an extremely daunting task. Groups are always going to be more likely to win, but maybe figure out a way to highlight the individual rather than the group. I'm not entirely sure how to do this, but at the very least on the "honor" system we can a separate hall of fame for the "lone wolves" that have made it through. Make a contest where rather than being sequential, its daily, everybody gets to start on the new puzzle everyday...and the individual winner gets "kudos" points, and possibly tier it so the same person doesnt win everytime (Once you get a certain amount of points...you move up the next level of difficulty (round 4-5 percieved that may take more than one day) and once 5 or 10 people are at that level you start a championship gaming round). I realize theres limitations and openings for cheating there as well, but at least its an attempt to keep people on open footing. I realize it might not work at all either Smile but im just trying to throw out ideas.

I think the main thing we all have to realize is people do this their own way, and no matter how much we envision how people should play the game...its impossible to make them to it that way. Force the team issue, some people are going to be afraid that the need a team to even compete and be scared off....force the individual issue, people who like the social aspect are going to be annoyed. I say just let it go, let people play how they want to play, and have fun with it. The PM's can have fun writing, seeing us be stupid, and we can have fun solving Smile The rest doesnt matter.
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january
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 10:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm going to enter the discussion with my wooden spoon.

Cognos mentioned something in her post that everyone has chosen to ignore.

Those people that join teams late and go tearing up the board entering answers.

I think team members should be announced at the beginning of the contest, and nobody should be allowed to join late in the above manner.
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