Variable Values

Scott Hardie | September 15, 2014
Judging a celebrity goo's difficulty in advance will forever be one of my weaknesses.

Would a good rule system be one in which every goo is worth points based on its actual proven solvability after it's over? Each goo could be worth something like 500 points, to be divided equally among the players who solved it (with or without the lucky cats). Thus, you could potentially earn a big reward if you're the only player who manages to pull off the right answer, but the reward would be small if the goo was so easy that everybody solved it.

Downsides: You wouldn't get any points until the goo was over, so timing your movement on the pagoda would be difficult to work out. Plus, seven goos would have to expire at once at the end of the season, making the winner a surprise.

I don't really intend to do this. I'm just tossing out an idea for discussion's sake.

Chris Lemler | September 15, 2014
I really like the idea 500 points spreaded equally for the people solve it

Samir Mehta | September 15, 2014
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Steve West | September 15, 2014
I'm liking the sound of it the more I'm mulling it over.

Scott Hardie | September 15, 2014
Hmm, maybe it's a better idea than I thought. :-) I floated the possibility of this for the Oscars contest years ago, and it was widely rejected in favor of the traditional scoring that the contest continues to use to this day. I'll consider actually using this next season. Thanks for weighing in. More feedback is always welcome.

Aaron Shurtleff | September 15, 2014
How would this be affected by requested goos? Would someone get more points the fewer people who guess their goo, but zero points if no one guessed it? I would support that, because then you are encouraged to make it super difficult, but if you go impossible difficulty, you hurt yourself.

Samir Mehta | September 15, 2014
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Scott Hardie | September 16, 2014
I like it too. The current system incentivizes creating really difficult goos. Instead of reviewing them to ensure quality, I wind up reviewing them to ensure solvability -- and I'm already not very good at that. :-) I will definitely give this consideration for next season.

Samir Mehta | September 18, 2014
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Chris Lemler | September 18, 2014
I agree with you Samir but I think Scott tried that betting on on the players guesses didn't work out to well. But that is a good idea Samir and maybe Scott will take that idea under consideration. You have some good idea's Samir

Samir Mehta | September 23, 2014
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Scott Hardie | September 28, 2014
Help me out here: What did the "correctly guessed goos per round" text show, and where did it appear? Is it a count of goos solved for the current season, displayed on the Pagoda page somewhere? Or a list of all goos solved per all seasons, on your player profile? I'm happy to add either piece of information, but I can't remember what it was earlier. Maybe I'll add both.

I'll consider the betting, but to be honest, I'm not inclined. It would definitely add more variation in the scoring and more opportunities for you to outmaneuver your opponents, but it's also really complicated, for players and for me. It wasn't popular, and until now I didn't think it was missed. :-)

Scott Hardie | February 28, 2015
Fyi, I've decided not to go with the variable values idea or betting idea. I do like the notion of the points being based more on "actual difficulty" instead of my best guess at difficulty, but I think the downsides would be more detrimental to the game than the upside would justify.

I did, however, implement Samir's request from September 23. On the page for a season, there's now a list at the top of player scores for that season. On the page for a player, there's now a list of seasons played and the score in each.

Scott Hardie | February 28, 2015
Another reason not to go with the "variable values" idea: I think I have a better -- not perfect, but better -- grasp on difficulty now than I used to. I have a specific rule of thumb for difficulty now:

Easy; Most players will know the answer right away and don't need to research.
Medium: Most players will get the answer with a quick search online.
Hard: Most players will require more research than just a quick search online.

I'm still contemplating a "very hard" difficulty for goos that are resistant to ample amounts of research, but frankly, I don't really want that kind of goo in the game. :-\