Game Suggestions

Steve Dunn | August 5, 2010
This seems like a good time to throw out some thoughts and comments on the Goo game and Rock Block. I know Scott always likes feedback. I've shared some of this with him privately but I am also curious what others think.

1) The main thing I do not like about the betting system is that it strongly encourages sandbagging in one form or another. Everyone who achieved a top score did it by making max bets from Tier 4. With such a strong advantage coming out of Tier 4, there's a clear incentive to miss goos intentionally or otherwise hold back to jockey for position. (TO BE CLEAR: this is no knock on Chris Lemler - I strongly admire how he played and won, my only regret being that it was him and not me. I tried a different variation that didn't pan out, in part because I thought Chris had lost interest in the game!) That said, Chris won by guessing only 33 out of 50 goos. I know Ryan and I both intentionally missed goos to get to lower tiers. Maybe I'm just sentimental, but a part of me thinks that promptly guessing every goo correctly ought to be a path to success rather than certain defeat.

2) There is a powerful incentive in the game not to guess goos until the last possible moment. I think it might be nice to balance this out a bit, not necessarily to reward immediate guessing (I'd really rather not hover over my computer at midnight every night) but some kind of balancing factor to encourage (or at least not punish) prompt guessing.

3) I think the tiers could use some re-balancing. Tier 4 is so much more powerful than 1, 2, or 3 that I think it skews the game in the ways I mentioned above. Tier 2 is interesting because it enables the greatest downward mobility. I am sure there is no perfect formula here, but I tend to think flattening the curve a bit would improve gameplay. (Having more players would also help, but what can you do?) One idea I shared with Scott was to make each individual player an individual "tier."

4) Betting on other players: seemed like a rote exercise and not much of a factor. (By the way, I'm sure I'm not the only one who got burned when Mike Rothstein popped in out of nowhere and guessed a couple near the end. Also took some hits on Chris Lemler as he drifted down to Tier 4... eventually stopped placing bets on anyone named Lemler!)

5) Goos were too easy this round. This just added to the already powerful incentive to make a run from Tier 4.

OK, I'm going to have to get some work done this morning so I need to stop. A few quick notes on Rock Block.

1) Thanks for eliminating the setback for losing. Ryan told me he thinks someone would have eventually won, "even if it took 10 years." For me, 10 years is a bit long for any round and I'm not convinced it would have happened in that time frame anyway. With psychedelia concerts and cards being shuffled on overtime concerts, I don't care how good you are - there's a random factor.

2) I'd personally prefer no overtime concerts in the tournament. Strictly a personal preference - I just get sick of looking at the same cards and playing the same game over and over.

3) I'd favor a move away from balanced concerts and go back to the old themed concert system where hands could be wildly unbalanced. Everyone would get screwed sometimes, but I think over a long term and lots of concerts, skill would eventually be rewarded.

I'm very curious to know what the rest of you think! I know there are a lot of people who think pretty deeply about these games, but we don't talk about them much.

Justin Woods | August 5, 2010
My biggest complaint to the new goo game is that you have to be willing to put in the wrong answer a number of times to win, and then if you don't win like Chris you have just wasted correct guess that affect your overall rank.

I have always thought that the baseline for the Goo Game should always be that you have to guess correctly to win a round.

Steve Dunn | August 5, 2010
My biggest complaint to the new goo game is that you have to be willing to put in the wrong answer a number of times to win, and then if you don't win like Chris you have just wasted correct guess that affect your overall rank.

I have always thought that the baseline for the Goo Game should always be that you have to guess correctly to win a round.

Totally agree. You take hits not just in overall rank, but also streaks. I think a bunch of us could have had perfect rounds and be working on streaks over 50.

Scott Hardie | August 6, 2010
The main thing I do not like about the betting system is that it strongly encourages sandbagging in one form or another.

Totally agreed that this system needs tweaking. I don't think it's fundamentally flawed; I just think the numbers need some balancing. Although I haven't yet decided on what form that balancing will take, I'm intrigued by Steve's suggestion of an individual tier for each player, enough to give it some thought before the next round begins.

Maybe I'm just sentimental, but a part of me thinks that promptly guessing every goo correctly ought to be a path to success rather than certain defeat.

Agreed. That was not my intention, and I'll say again, I don't think the system inherently forces that outcome. I just got the numbers wrong, by making the limits and multipliers too high in the lower tiers. I expected at least a few players to play a straightforward round just as I expected a few players to try the slingshot-from-behind strategy, and I thought the former would have a better shot at winning than they wound up having. That said, I still think they did pretty well.

There is a powerful incentive in the game not to guess goos until the last possible moment.

This one is tricky. I feel the same way about encouraging early guessing, perhaps by lowering each player's reward the longer they go between entering a bet and entering a guess. But the game is already hard enough to get into for new players (something that's not really going to change until the betting system is inevitably replaced in another, say, six months), and I don't want to make it harder on new players or occasional players by punishing them for merely taking their time to play. That was, after all, the original intention of making such big multipliers and limits in the lower tiers: To give the sometimes players a chance of competing against the hard-core regulars.

It's tempting to say that I shouldn't bother making the game balanced for the sometimes players, that if they wanted to compete then they should suck it up and play harder, that they can just guess when they feel like it and leave the competition to the competitors. But I've seen way too many people drop out of the game because they just can't go fifty straight days without a break, and the competition is fierce enough that missing a single goo can be the kiss of death. I'm not interested in a system that doesn't offer some balance for different levels of players.

Having more players would also help, but what can you do?

A lot. Gimme time. Like a year. I'm on it.

Betting on other players: seemed like a rote exercise and not much of a factor.

Meh. I like it even if it's rote. It was merely intended to provided a semi-randomized effect so that two players couldn't bet exactly the same on goos and guess exactly the same and wind up tied for the win. The gap between Chris's #1 score and Ryan's #2 score is small enough to close with this margin, although that's much easier said than done.

Goos were too easy this round.

I know you don't intend this as a criticism, just as comment. But for what it's worth, the easiness was not for lack of trying on my part. Twelve years I've been running this game and I still don't understand goo difficulty. I thought Constance McMillen would be medium difficulty, solved by most of the regulars, and it stumped almost everyone. I thought Fawza Falih would be hard, and almost everyone got her. I thought at least a couple of players would solve Suzy Kassem, but no one did. I was even more off the mark than usual this round.

Thanks for eliminating the setback for losing.

My pleasure. I had a feeling the RB tournament might go this way, but I was wrong in my expectations last year, so I decided to let it play out and stand by if I needed to change the rules. It turned out that I did need to change them. I have another change in mind for September, but let's see how it plays out like this first.

With psychedelia concerts and cards being shuffled on overtime concerts, I don't care how good you are - there's a random factor.

I don't see overtime shuffling as random at all. You keep the cards that were your color at the end of the last concert. If you can't force a win, forcing the next concert's cards to rank in your favor is the next best thing. That factor has won a number of concerts for me. If I'm giving away info that helps players in the tournament, good. :-)

Psychedelia is the devil.

I'd personally prefer no overtime concerts in the tournament. Strictly a personal preference - I just get sick of looking at the same cards and playing the same game over and over.

It was necessary when there was such a penalty for losing. It's less necessary now. What do other people think about this?

My biggest complaint to the new goo game is that you have to be willing to put in the wrong answer a number of times to win, and then if you don't win like Chris you have just wasted correct guess that affect your overall rank.

Agreed, it's a problem. Like I said, I thought playing a straightforward round would be one viable route to success, and it turned out differently.

I have always thought that the baseline for the Goo Game should always be that you have to guess correctly to win a round.

100% agreed. After the disappointing rebus-based system a decade ago, I have avoided systems that added some arbitrary game-within-a-game that had nothing to do with solving goos. I still like the Super Goo idea and hope to try it someday, but it's just too big of a project for me to take on right now.

I think a bunch of us could have had perfect rounds and be working on streaks over 50.

Even with Suzy Kassem?

Russ Wilhelm | August 6, 2010
I thought about missing goo's to drop down, but only for a moment. I just don't have it in me, best I could do is bet lower than max.

So what about instead of having a flat line where you can guess all the goo's at a certain tier, each subsequent bet is based upon where the previous bet will place you if guessed correctly, at the moment the bet is placed. This, in theory, should keep the game close, with the betting for/against other players playing much more of a factor in deciding the outcome.

Steve Dunn | August 6, 2010
So what about instead of having a flat line where you can guess all the goo's at a certain tier, each subsequent bet is based upon where the previous bet will place you if guessed correctly, at the moment the bet is placed.

This could work. Or, maybe you could only have one goo open at a time.

Even with Suzy Kassem?

OK, maybe not, I don't know.