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 Timed Puzzle Bonus 
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Posted on: Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:53 am




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: Timed Puzzle Bonus
But starling, you never get a timed puzzle show the grid first before the cursor, right? At least for me for timed, they show up at the same time and I assume that's when the timer starts. But you're right that sometimes on a regular untimed puzzle the grid shows up before the cursor does and I have to wait a few seconds before doing anything.


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Posted on: Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:31 am




Posts: 212
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:11 am
Post Re: Timed Puzzle Bonus
sneaklyfox wrote:
But starling, you never get a timed puzzle show the grid first before the cursor, right? At least for me for timed, they show up at the same time and I assume that's when the timer starts. But you're right that sometimes on a regular untimed puzzle the grid shows up before the cursor does and I have to wait a few seconds before doing anything.


Right, that's what I'm saying; on timed puzzles the grid, cage numbers, and cursor all load simultaneously.


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Posted on: Thu Feb 09, 2012 11:31 am




Posts: 3295
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzle Bonus
starling wrote:
Wait, this wasn't programmed to be the case? I had assumed it was because it works perfectly so that on timed people are timed from when they see and can enter numbers to when they finish.

It is programmed to be the case for the timed puzzles.
But I don't see why it wouldn't be the case for the regular puzzles (will have to check),
because those pages are using the same code (but maybe something is skipped for
the timed puzzle that's causing a delay).

Patrick


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Posted on: Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:55 pm




Posts: 855
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 6:51 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzle Bonus
sneaklyfox wrote:
pnm wrote:
A quick check of some recent results is showing only one case
of someone using two accounts to do timed puzzles. Not sure
what to do about that though (I can't really restrict the number
of timed puzzles done from a single IP, for example).

Patrick


Maybe an auto email from the site when there are two or more users from the same IP just saying that it is perfectly fine if they are two different people but that if it is the same person then it is unsportsmanlike (in better words than that.) Then we can just hope that if it's the same person that they'll play honourably and stop doing it. ...


This is a very good idea, sneaklyfox, normally a msg like that should be enough (other measures could be proposed later if "they" insist, supposing the same person is taking advantage of the "loophole", I think that it would not be very difficult to distinguish if they are two different persons or if it is the same person, it's practically impossible that two different persons, in the same computer, have practically the same averages, in other words, the averages of one, the averages of the other, and the averages of both considered together would be very very close).


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Posted on: Thu Feb 09, 2012 8:07 pm




Posts: 3295
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzle Bonus
sneaklyfox wrote:
Related, can there be a timer (option of course for those who like it and those who don't like that kind of pressure) on the regular puzzles too not for record or points but for personal interest and "practice" so we know what sort of times we are getting on those?

One thing I could do: start a timer at the first keypress on the puzzle,
not show it, and then show it in the green "solved" window?

Patrick


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Posted on: Fri Feb 17, 2012 7:51 pm




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Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzle Bonus
pnm wrote:
But I don't see why it wouldn't be the case for the regular puzzles (will have to check),
because those pages are using the same code (but maybe something is skipped for
the timed puzzle that's causing a delay).

I just noticed that sometimes that useless "tweet" button is blocking the site.
I've removed it for now.

Patrick


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Posted on: Fri Mar 09, 2012 5:12 pm




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: Timed Puzzle Bonus
pnm wrote:
starling wrote:
Unrelated, Patrick, whenever we do get around to changing the point structure in timed, about what do you think it'll move towards?

Maybe a combination of time + ranking bonus? (so points for getting a 6 second 4x4, say, and
points for the daily ranking).

But I'll have to think about it.


I think it's kind of hard to get a combination when we don't want the timed puzzle points to be very much and we don't have decimal point system. I have a suggestion though: Instead of adding points for getting higher ranking or better time, it could go into changing the target points for the bonus puzzle. Like, subtract x number from the target number. Better ranking or lower time would reduce by more points. In a sense it is like decimal points because every time you have to get another 111 points to have a chance to get those 10 points from the bonus puzzle.


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Posted on: Fri Mar 09, 2012 5:46 pm




Posts: 300
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:15 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzle Bonus
sneaklyfox wrote:
I have a suggestion though: Instead of adding points for getting higher ranking or better time, it could go into changing the target points for the bonus puzzle. Like, subtract x number from the target number. Better ranking or lower time would reduce by more points. In a sense it is like decimal points because every time you have to get another 111 points to have a chance to get those 10 points from the bonus puzzle.


I'm not averse to this idea, but if memory serves, Patrick bumped the bonus threshold from 100 to 111 because he was 'running out' of bonus puzzles. Of course, the variety of bonus puzzles has mushroomed as well - twins, 0-5, 0-6, etc. - so maybe this isn't much of a concern any longer.

Also, getting 'extra' bonus puzzles - and by extension, extra bonus points - may not address everyone's concerns. I could easily be misremembering this but I think Starling was interested in seeing timed points in isolation since he doesn't always take the time to complete all the untimed puzzles.

There is no easy universal solution to this. I definitely want to preserve something to differentiate folks who normally solve all the untimed puzzles. Otherwise the 7-day and 30-day rankings would look like the 'Nr consecutive days' page with many, many people all ranked #1. I would much rather be ranked 10th or 12th than tied with 100 other people for 1st. (Even though the company at the top would be great.)

I'm realizing I've offered no solutions here, only more things to muddy the waters. So I'll close by saying, as others already have, that the system currently in place is pretty great. And if it can be made better, then this is a really lucky community.


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Posted on: Fri Mar 09, 2012 7:26 pm




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Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzle Bonus
jaek wrote:
I'm not averse to this idea, but if memory serves, Patrick bumped the bonus threshold from 100 to 111 because he was 'running out' of bonus puzzles. Of course, the variety of bonus puzzles has mushroomed as well - twins, 0-5, 0-6, etc. - so maybe this isn't much of a concern any longer.

In practice it isn't, I can always generate more puzzles of course.
Maybe I'll change it to a random number of points between 75 and 225 :-)

I think that connecting the timed and bonus puzzles may make things a bit too convoluted / complicated.

The code for computing the separate rankings I already finished (sometime last year I think (!)), but the
work still left is to integrate it with the page.

Patrick


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Posted on: Fri Mar 09, 2012 7:40 pm




Posts: 275
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:51 pm
Post Re: Timed Puzzle Bonus
Thanks. I support as little merging of timed and untimed as possible.


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