c4countdown

Charlie, I have a slight problem, but it really doesn't matter, unless it'll only take you a few clicks on your keyboard to fix.

I decided to host a MSN game, using apterous as a round generator. Unfortunately, I hadn't thought of the affect of a zero game on my rating!
Is there some way you can delete that game from my history, or restore my rating, just over 400 I think, please?

Not the end of the world if you can't, or if it would take you ages, obviously.
I expect I'll use countgen if I hosted again.

Julie T wrote:Charlie, I have a slight problem, but it really doesn't matter, unless it'll only take you a few clicks on your keyboard to fix.

I decided to host a MSN game, using apterous as a round generator. Unfortunately, I hadn't thought of the affect of a zero game on my rating!
Is there some way you can delete that game from my history, or restore my rating, just over 400 I think, please?

Not the end of the world if you can't, or if it would take you ages, obviously.
I expect I'll use countgen if I hosted again.

How come you didn't do a friendly game (i.e. ratings don't change)? You will find it under the Custom challenges

This kind of thing is hard for me to fix without shutting down the game completely, but I wouldn't worry too much -- with the new bot, you should get a few more wins under your belt and your rating will soon go back up again.

Thanks, Charlie, for Waldorf. 1-1 so far!

I didn't realise that you could customise unrated games. Now I know!

How are the ratings exactly worked out?

Joseph Bolas wrote:How are the ratings exactly worked out?

However it works, the bots seem to get the shitty end of the stick. Prune has had a negative ranking for a while now and Waldorf has fallen pretty quickly down into the low 100s; OK, he's not a brilliant player, but this seems unrealistically low. Even Plum and Caesar - both of whom are reasonably competent - have struggled to break 500 lately.

I think part of the problem is that the bots aren't so good at the non-standard stuff (e.g. Goatdown, speed games, Attacks), so whilst their ratings may be appropriate for 5 second Super-Ultra-Hyper-Goat-O-Matic games, they're way too low for yer common or garden 9 or 15 round outing. Also, the lower-ranked bots get picked on if records are being attempted (I've been guilty of this myself) so their ratings become further depressed.

EDIT - Actually, looking at Waldorf's recent games, it seems that you, Joseph, are a contributor to his downfall. Just in the last 24 hours, you've played him 17 times and won them all. Don't you think it's time to move on to a more challenging opponent?

I can't be bothered to explain how the ratings work but the relevant factors are the winner spread and the rating difference between the two players. I might say more at some stage, probably on the website.

jimbentley wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:How are the ratings exactly worked out?

However it works, the bots seem to get the shitty end of the stick. Prune has had a negative ranking for a while now and Waldorf has fallen pretty quickly down into the low 100s; OK, he's not a brilliant player, but this seems unrealistically low. Even Plum and Caesar - both of whom are reasonably competent - have struggled to break 500 lately.

I think part of the problem is that the bots aren't so good at the non-standard stuff (e.g. Goatdown, speed games, Attacks), so whilst their ratings may be appropriate for 5 second Super-Ultra-Hyper-Goat-O-Matic games, they're way too low for yer common or garden 9 or 15 round outing. Also, the lower-ranked bots get picked on if records are being attempted (I've been guilty of this myself) so their ratings become further depressed.

EDIT - Actually, looking at Waldorf's recent games, it seems that you, Joseph, are a contributor to his downfall. Just in the last 24 hours, you've played him 17 times and won them all. Don't you think it's time to move on to a more challenging opponent?

I've got to take a vast amount of blame for this too (my vastly overinflated rating being evidence of this) but I have taken more to just picking on prune in recent days to minimise the ratings upheaval.

A female Countdown host? Well, I guess i'm not surprised because our host of Millionaire in daytime is a woman!

jimbentley wrote:EDIT - Actually, looking at Waldorf's recent games, it seems that you, Joseph, are a contributor to his downfall. Just in the last 24 hours, you've played him 17 times and won them all. Don't you think it's time to move on to a more challenging opponent?

Maybe it is time to move onto Plum. Sorry .

Joseph Bolas wrote:
Maybe it is time to move onto Plum. Sorry .

I don't think people should feel obliged to alter their playing preferences to protect a flimsy rating system. If you really enjoy playing a much weaker opponent and winning almost every time then go for it.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:
Maybe it is time to move onto Plum. Sorry .

I don't think people should feel obliged to alter their playing preferences to protect a flimsy rating system. If you really enjoy playing a much weaker opponent and winning almost every time then go for it.

Well, I would've stayed on Prune instead of moving up to Waldorf, if I wanted to play weaker opponents . I am slowly going to work my way up to Rex.

What I have noticed about Plum is that he picks 6 small numbers, which is not one my strong points, so its also good practice for improving that. Plus also Plum spots some unusal words, which will also be good to learn

Charlie Reams wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:
Maybe it is time to move onto Plum. Sorry .

I don't think people should feel obliged to alter their playing preferences to protect a flimsy rating system. If you really enjoy playing a much weaker opponent and winning almost every time then go for it.

I still play Prune.

jimbentley wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:How are the ratings exactly worked out?

However it works, the bots seem to get the shitty end of the stick. Prune has had a negative ranking for a while now and Waldorf has fallen pretty quickly down into the low 100s; OK, he's not a brilliant player, but this seems unrealistically low. Even Plum and Caesar - both of whom are reasonably competent - have struggled to break 500 lately.

I think part of the problem is that the bots aren't so good at the non-standard stuff (e.g. Goatdown, speed games, Attacks), so whilst their ratings may be appropriate for 5 second Super-Ultra-Hyper-Goat-O-Matic games, they're way too low for yer common or garden 9 or 15 round outing. Also, the lower-ranked bots get picked on if records are being attempted (I've been guilty of this myself) so their ratings become further depressed.

EDIT - Actually, looking at Waldorf's recent games, it seems that you, Joseph, are a contributor to his downfall. Just in the last 24 hours, you've played him 17 times and won them all. Don't you think it's time to move on to a more challenging opponent?

I think this mostly comes from it being easier to beat the bots at conundrum attacks, and to a lesser extent, speed games. If you look through the game browser very few people take prime and rex on in regular games or goatdown where they are strongest, and I have to confess to ripping through a few conundrum attacks against prime to boost what was my meagre rating. It might be a good idea to make all conundrum attacks unrated.

I play a lot of speedgoat and while prime is a worth adversary, the others seem a bit weak. For instance, I can massacre plum at speedgoat but in regular countdown plum gives me a stern challenge and has beaten me a couple of times.

Paul Howe wrote:It might be a good idea to make all conundrum attacks unrated.

It's certainly true that the bots are underrated for 15 rounders. For example Apterous Rex is rated below Kirk, but I can't imagine it losing to Richard Pay. Still, forcing certain games to be unrated would be a pretty ad hoc fix. Should 19-conundrum games be unrated? What about a normal conundrum attack with an almost-certainly-meaningless letters round at the end?.

My preferred (and probably the only) solution is to balance the bots correctly so that the Prune is as much weakened by speed rounds as a typical human player of his skill would be. Of course that's difficult to do but anything else is just a band-aid. And I suspect in honesty that Prune's rating is in fact pretty accurate for his dismal skill level, even though it seems a bit weird to have a player with a negative rating.

A fair point, I forgot you could create custom formats. What typically happens is I lose the majority of games in a speedgoat session to prime, boosting his rating, and next time I come to play someone has knocked him back down again with conundrum attacks. Playing speedgoat with someone better than me becomes a much bigger ratings loser than it should be.

I'd suggest rebalancing prime's conundrum ability to be more like rex's, and setting rex's so that 95% of his buzzes are distributed between 0.8-2.0 secs. He's supposed to be formidable after all!

Paul Howe wrote:I'd suggest rebalancing prime's conundrum ability to be more like rex's, and setting rex's so that 95% of his buzzes are distributed between 0.8-2.0 secs. He's supposed to be formidable after all!

That seems very reasonable. The relatively high minimum time for bots to buzz on the conundrum is a hold-over from the old system where you had to enter the complete word before you could "buzz", which of course made it rather unfair if the bots could buzz faster than anyone could type nine letters!

I play a lot of conundrum attacks etc, and i have noticed that Rex is incredibly quick, almost to the point of unbeatability - given that we have to click on or press on the correct letter first.

Have noticed many times, that whenever i've beaten Rex to the word, pretend its CHOCOLATE, i've clicked on C, the C has appeared in the answer box then its all disappeared and Rex gets to give his answer. In other words, what i am trying to say in a round about way is that Rex and possibly all bots, get to 'buzz' in a microsecond after the human player and get to offer up their answer. This isn't a complaint, its merely a comment on what happens.

I think its unrealistic to set Rex to have reaction times of 0.8 seconds for a conundrum. There is hardly a chance for the human player to move the mouse onto the right letter and click, it just takes too long. Unless of course there is a quicker way i don't know about?

Damian E wrote:
I think its unrealistic to set Rex to have reaction times of 0.8 seconds for a conundrum. There is hardly a chance for the human player to move the mouse onto the right letter and click, it just takes too long. Unless of course there is a quicker way i don't know about?

You can press the first letter of the word on the keyboard! I actually didn't realise you could use the mouse, seems like a pretty terrible way of buzzing. The reason I suggested 0.8s for Rex's fastest buzz is that it's close to the reactions of the fastest human players (when using a non-hilarious buzzing method ), and I think the whole point of Rex is that he's nearly impossible to beat. He's always perfect on the letters and numbers rounds, so I don't see why he should be a soft touch on the conundrums.

Also on the subject of the conundrums, I've noticed that the bots often solve the goatnundrum almost instantly (too fast to react) after the final letter is revealed. I don't know if this is just a coincidence and their buzz time is independent of the letter being revealed, but it does seem to happen a lot

I find the keyboard harder Paul, in that i have to look down to see where my finger is going, plus it means i have to let go of my drink.

Sure, Rex needs to be a tough old challenge, but with the conundrums, i don't think anyone could beat 0.8 seconds, which is what they would have to do.

My fastest is 0.9 seconds with CIRCUITRY, and is because the mouse pointer was already over the letter C by chance.

I have a cunning plan.........(not sure Charlie will be keen).....and that is a TIMED challenge. See who can answer the most in lets say, 60 seconds, or 2 minutes - but not against a bot, just against the clock. Same rules apply though, as in hitting the correct letter first to avoid cheating.

I only found out by chance last night that you can enter the numbers target by clicking on Cecil. Maybe i should read the rules first of all. Maybe i should stop playing duels at 5am as well.

Paul Howe wrote:Also on the subject of the conundrums, I've noticed that the bots often solve the goatnundrum almost instantly (too fast to react) after the final letter is revealed. I don't know if this is just a coincidence and their buzz time is independent of the letter being revealed, but it does seem to happen a lot

Hmm, that shouldn't happen. I'll take a look at it.

Don't you just love it, Charlie, having everyone pick holes in your craft. Now you know how i've felt for 12 years

Half of Dover.

Damian E wrote:
Sure, Rex needs to be a tough old challenge, but with the conundrums, i don't think anyone could beat 0.8 seconds, which is what they would have to do.

Just to clarify, I was suggesting that Rex's buzz time should be between 0.8 and 2 secs. 0.8s would be the fastest he could buzz, he'd almost always be slower. And I suppose us nerds who spend far too much time in front of a computer tend to forget the keyboard won't be second nature to everyone.

Charlie Reams wrote: Hmm, that shouldn't happen. I'll take a look at it.

Thanks

I don't use the keyboard with my fingers, Paul.
I have a large proboscis-like implement wrapped around my forehead which i use to peck at the keys with.
I'll put it up on YouTube someday.

Damian E wrote:I have a cunning plan.........(not sure Charlie will be keen).....and that is a TIMED challenge. See who can answer the most in lets say, 60 seconds, or 2 minutes - but not against a bot, just against the clock. Same rules apply though, as in hitting the correct letter first to avoid cheating.

Jono had a similar idea which I will probably implement at some stage. The idea is that you have, say, 300 seconds on the clock, and it's up to you how to distribute that time over the rounds. So if you see a nine after two seconds then you type it in, end the round immediately and conserve a bit of time for later. It would be pretty cool but I haven't yet got round to going through all the details.

I only found out by chance last night that you can enter the numbers target by clicking on Cecil.

Most people don't know that. I guess someone should write a manual. Volunteers?

Damian E wrote:I don't use the keyboard with my fingers, Paul.
I have a large proboscis-like implement wrapped around my forehead which i use to peck at the keys with.

Heh, no wonder you can't hold your drink.

Damian E wrote:I have a cunning plan.........(not sure Charlie will be keen).....and that is a TIMED challenge. See who can answer the most in lets say, 60 seconds, or 2 minutes - but not against a bot, just against the clock. Same rules apply though, as in hitting the correct letter first to avoid cheating.

Good idea. I thought of something similar where you play regular Countdown but with a time bank, that, say, averages out at about 15 seconds per round, and you get to choose when you end the round. If it's an easy 9 you get more time on other rounds like numbers and stuff. I think it's on the maybe pile.

We did a similar thing at the Mind Sports Olympiad, many moons ago Jono.

Gave all the applicants a sheet with all the rounds printed on. If you got a 9 in two seconds on Rd 1, you then theoretically had 58 seconds for Rd 2 etc.

It wasn't QUITE adhering to the Countdown rules, but it was still such jolly fun. Very good. Splendid.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Paul Howe wrote:It might be a good idea to make all conundrum attacks unrated.

It's certainly true that the bots are underrated for 15 rounders. For example Apterous Rex is rated below Kirk, but I can't imagine it losing to Richard Pay. Still, forcing certain games to be unrated would be a pretty ad hoc fix. Should 19-conundrum games be unrated? What about a normal conundrum attack with an almost-certainly-meaningless letters round at the end?

Not that I would necessarily endorse it, but if you were going down that route, you'd probably be better off having a set list of games that are rateable rather than adding ones onto a never-ending list of ones that aren't. Presumably all custom games would then be out. But I don't think it's a good idea overall.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Paul Howe wrote:It might be a good idea to make all conundrum attacks unrated.

It's certainly true that the bots are underrated for 15 rounders. For example Apterous Rex is rated below Kirk, but I can't imagine it losing to Richard Pay. Still, forcing certain games to be unrated would be a pretty ad hoc fix. Should 19-conundrum games be unrated? What about a normal conundrum attack with an almost-certainly-meaningless letters round at the end?

Not that I would necessarily endorse it, but if you were going down that route, you'd probably be better off having a set list of games that are rateable rather than adding ones onto a never-ending list of ones that aren't. Presumably all custom games would then be out. But I don't think it's a good idea overall.

Or, better yet, having the more standard games count for more in the ratings, even if the cutom games are Bolasesque 9000 rounders.

Ben Wilson wrote:Or, better yet, having the more standard games count for more in the ratings, even if the custom games are Bolasesque 9000 rounders.

Now come on. I did a 700-round game, which is nowhere near 9000 and I've only done that 700-rounder one time.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Paul Howe wrote:It might be a good idea to make all conundrum attacks unrated.

It's certainly true that the bots are underrated for 15 rounders. For example Apterous Rex is rated below Kirk, but I can't imagine it losing to Richard Pay.

Oi. That comment makes me angry.

I know the bots are now better at conundrums as a direct result of my bitching, but could they be made a teensy bit less good at goatundrums (i.e as they were before)? I am getting raped with maximum efficiency

Paul and Damian, the conundrum on Apterous was originally set so that you had to press the first letter of the answer on the keyboard to 'buzz in', but Charlie changed it to give you the option of just clicking on the first letter, because Gevin said that having to press the first letter gave an unfair advantage to those who knew their way around a keyboard better (and I'm inclined to agree)

Julian Fell wrote:Paul and Damian, the conundrum on Apterous was originally set so that you had to press the first letter of the answer on the keyboard to 'buzz in', but Charlie changed it to give you the option of just clicking on the first letter, because Gevin said that having to press the first letter gave an unfair advantage to those who knew their way around a keyboard better (and I'm inclined to agree)

Fair enough, I agree too, although I still think the skilled typists have an advantage over the clickers. Just something that has to be accepted if you want to prevent Hansfording, I think.

Paul Howe wrote:

Julian Fell wrote:Paul and Damian, the conundrum on Apterous was originally set so that you had to press the first letter of the answer on the keyboard to 'buzz in', but Charlie changed it to give you the option of just clicking on the first letter, because Gevin said that having to press the first letter gave an unfair advantage to those who knew their way around a keyboard better (and I'm inclined to agree)

Fair enough, I agree too, although I still think the skilled typists have an advantage over the clickers. Just something that has to be accepted if you want to prevent Hansfording, I think.

Perhaps you could make it so everyone has to click. Make typing not an option.

Gavin Chipper wrote:Perhaps you could make it so everyone has to click. Make typing not an option.

Don't do this. Would be a nightmare with a laptop touchpad.

Jon Corby wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:Perhaps you could make it so everyone has to click. Make typing not an option.

Don't do this. Would be a nightmare a laptop touchpad.

Agreed. Its already bad enough clicking the right numbers on a laptop, if you've run out of time to write it in the notes!