Spring 2022: The Season of Trek
Steve West | May 28, 2022
Winning aside, this season was really a lot of fun. I have a suggestion. I like the randomness of the Bonus points but it's really disappointing to solve a really difficult goo and receive 2 Bonus points. I'd prefer a weighted scale in which "Very Easy" and Easy" could receive anywhere from 1 - 50, "Medium" could receive anywhere from 10 - 50, and "Hard" and "Very Hard" receiving anywhere from 20 - 50. Any player created goos would differ in that the solvers would earn Bonus points determined by the regular weighted scale but creators would receive anywhere from 1 -50 (so as to not have creators make impossibly hard goos only so as to get the highest Bonus but stump the solvers). Maybe a different weighting system is better but I'm good with this one.
Scott Hardie | May 30, 2022
That's not a bad idea. I appreciate that you considered the effect of player-created goos, which is what prevented me from applying different point values to goos of varying difficulty before. (Players already have a natural incentive to create goos that are as hard as possible, to prevent competitors from scoring. If they also earned many more points for creating a hard goo than they would for creating an easy goo, I fear it would be even worse.) I will think about this.
Now that we've played a few times with this new point-based system, I'm still glad that we tried something instead of the lucky cats yet again, but I'm not so sure that this system is worth. If it hurts to solve a very hard goo and get only 2 bonus points for it, how much more does it hurt to play a long difficult season for three months and solve all of the goos and still lose because someone else got a few more bonus points than you did? I took this concept from many board games like Ticket to Ride that conceal the true scores until the end, but suddenly losing a 90-minute board game that you played well enough to win is easy to shake off; losing a three-month season of an online game that way is much harder. I keep thinking about this text in the rules:
In the very unlikely event that multiple players are tied with the highest score, the one with the highest combination of goos solved and goos created in the season will be declared the winner (and any further ties will go to the player with the lowest average solve time across the season), but any players tied for the highest score who are not declared the winner will receive [an] Amazon gift card as a consolation prize.Maybe we just shouldn't have bonus points at all, and we should let the above text suffice? Unfortunately there's quite a variation in playing speeds, since some players confidently guess with their first instinct right away while others prefer to do extra-thorough research, and the ties are still common enough that such a change might significantly disadvantage the players who take longer.
Scott Hardie | June 5, 2022
I'm still mulling the scoring system, and wondering if allowing multiple winners per season is the only way around our overall conundrum. But in the meantime, now that the season is fully closed, I want to praise Chris, Russ, and Steve for something else: Playing another perfect season each. No wonder they had such close scores; none of them missed a single goo in three months. Way to play, guys! :-)
Chris Lemler | June 5, 2022
Thank you! Job well done Steve and Russ
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Scott Hardie | May 28, 2022
Congratulations to Steve on winning the spring season! It's crazy how close the outcome was, with Chris, Russ, and Steve all earning an identical number of normal points and a slight variation in bonus points being the deciding factor. All three of you guys played a fantastic season, earning the most points by far, and you can all be proud of it today.
The Stars Who Trekked theme got out of control. If I knew before I started how many goos would eventually be included, I'd have broken it down into a recurring theme instead, with another week of seven goos every few months, rather than letting it take over a season like this. Nearly half of the goos this season (41 of 90) wound up in this collection. But it was fun, at least from my perspective, and I hope that you all enjoyed it too. The most amusing detail to me was that two of the celebrities didn't appear on Star Trek until after the season had already started.
I'm looking forward to the summer season. We're done with Star Trek for a while, but there are still plenty of player-created goos coming up. This season will run for 14 weeks instead of the usual 13. Good luck!