The mulligan does not erase your score, but it does give you a second chance to play the respective topic. So if you have just played your best topic but completely blew it because you ran low of caffeine or the cat crossed your keyboard, you can of course use it to get a second attempt, but it will count as one of the four tries, so it's not wise to use it on a "could do well but might also be an pic fail" topic if you have something better coming up.

Yep; I learned that one the hard way...........

Play the Easy Game and score 10/10 within 22.0 seconds.

In these Easy game challenges, your past scores before going to the page don't count. I had several games faster, but it they weren't counted. I just had a 985 last hour. Not counted. This has happened before. It's clearly a bug with PoC.

Can anybody tell me please, if I have been given the difficult 'I'm the Expert' challenge, and the other person does not play any Expert games that day, will I automatically be the winner or will we both lose this challenge?
I remember that this happened to me once before and we both lost the challenge, which I found a bit unfair to be honest (but as it was at the beginning when the Daily Challenges only just started, I hoped it may be just a bug).
It's just that I've been assigned to a member who only registered yesterday, so I'm a bit worried that they might not play today (impatient me lol).

Not if it's intended.



I would definitely think that you should win. If someone no-shows in knockout then the other person wins, so if someone doesn't play in a challenge then the other person should win. Are you completely sure that it did happen last time? It might have been a bug.

You might have been assigned to someone who joined yesterday, but they had to go to the challenge page to receive the challenge so they should be as likely as anyone else to play Expert as anyone else... assuming that there is a link from the challenge (which I think there is).


EDIT: Terry, it's just a minor thing, but in the FAQ under the main heading "Partner Challenges: Twin, Nemesis and Expert", the first sub-heading is "What kind of devilry have you cooked up with these two challenges?", when it should say three.

Thanks Adam, I would've thought so too.

But yes, I'm 100% sure this happened to me before. I logged on first thing in the morning (shortly before midnight Funtrivia Time) and the other person hadn't played an Expert Game at all and it showed me as the current leader, but after the challenges reset I checked 'Yesterday's Results' and it showed 'Incomplete'. Needless to say, I was gutted :-(

Huh? It clearly says "three" there. whistles innocently, quickly closing edit window before someone notices...

The "I'm the Expert" thing happened to me. Someone didn't play, but I did, and I won the challenge.

Oh that's good news then, Buddy.
Thanks for letting me know, because the other person still hasn't played yet.

One reason they may not play is because they know they have no way of beating the other person. That was the reason I didn't play one time, making my opponent the automatic winner.

Never mind, solved my own problem

It appears that ponycargirl is the first one to become Totally Epic having all 8 epic flags but she doesn't have the badge for doing so. I don't know if this is awarded immediately upon completion or one of those badges that are awarded at various times of the day I figure I'd report it in case it was the first one.

Nice job, ponycargirl! I've been watching the three with 7 for a while, but just woke up... So I hadn't seen it yet.

I know you were trying, monarch, you must be upset.

I was very surprised, I thought rossian and I were the only other ones with 7 different epics. I've been buying a challenge close to everyday and I've been getting epics about every 10 days or so I haven't seen one in a about a month. At this point I'm more likely going to buy a double or even triple flag.

Still, you have more than anybody, in total, so that's impressive.

And yes, ponycargirl snuck up on me, too. I knew of you and rossian, but then rossian pointed out ponycargirl was close too. A very impressive achievement for whoever achieves it this early!

And I would like to suggest a reason for the badge not appearing, suggested by pony herself.

She has one epic with two flags.

Is the algorithm only set to award the badge for winning ONE flag badge for each epic? She has two white, so, technically, she no longer has the one flag white badge, and no longer "qualifies" for the 8 epic flag badge. However, she has surpassed the qualifications for the badge, so she should have it earned.

If this is the case, the 2 and 3 flags need to be added in the algorithm for the badge to award (now that the extra flags are not secret).

Hopefully this can be done without confusing the system and awarding the badges when all 2 flags are won and 3?

OR...

Terry hasn't added the badge-awarding code yet. Wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

Nah, I think it's what I said. :P

Yeah can't remember if I activated that one or not -- will go check.

I still can't get over the fact that Wesley hasn't had a single epic yet!

Terry, maybe you could slightly change the random code for the buy selection to avoid extremely long stretches of no epics and also make directly adjacent ones less common:

My idea would be to use a random from 1 to 200 and then add to that the number of buys without getting an epic. Then set the thresholds appropriately - let's say 1-65 for Easy, 66 to 130 for Medium, 131 to 195 for Difficult and 196+ for Epic.

A player who has just played an epic would then only have a 2.5% chance to get another one right away, but one who had 40 whiffs in a row would have 22.5%.

(Numbers are of course purely examples - the key point is that your chance starts very low and then goes up. Limits variance which can be rather frustrating on both ends - players neither want 3 Epics in a run for the "10 per day" nor none for 50+ tries)

The numbers I have above would by the way result in the following probabilities:

1-5 buys between Epics: 16.3%
6-10: 22.3%
11-15: 22.0%
16-20: 17.4%
21-25: 11.3%
26-30: 6.2%
31-40: 4.0%
41+: 0.5%

Ponycargirl has been awarded her badge. I've also added the code to automatically issue that badge from now on. In theory it's instant when you get the 8th.

Wesley: I was thinking something along those lines too. Will consider that in the upcoming changes.

Terry - check forum PM. I've sent you a link to a quick Excel calculator I wrote so that you can play around with epic probabilities in the progressive (as well as the current flat) format.

Thanks will do

Congratulations, ponycargirl. I haven't had an Epic this year! On the other hand, I've been lucky to get eight in total with only one duplication so I'm certainly not complaining. You've had really bad luck, Wes, not to get a single one.

I used my option os switching out the Buzy Bee challenge today but received the Busy Bee again for my new challenge.
I don't think I used the change option earlier in the week but perhaps I did and that is the reason.
Since I'm here, prior to today I've had the Busy Bee for my difficult challenge four times in about 10 days. Luck of the draw I guess but thought I'd pass the data along.

I have had the Buzzy Bee several times and hate it. If I have the opportunity, I always swap it- if not, I ignore it and hope it goes away.

I'm having a problem with my difficult challenge that I bought today. I need to play quizzes in 16 categories and score 9 correct.
I played "obscure Musical Theater" for Humanities and "The Obscure Sports" for Sports.
I scored 10 correct on each but no credit. I have played the quizzes before but both well over 30 days prior.
My Humanities score didn't show a score at all for me when I went back and checked so I played it again, this time in quiz mode. My score did show then but still no credit.
My sports score isn't showing either but I have not replayed that quiz.
Thanks.
It's been awhile since I posted this, I know everyone is busy so will I'll just give up on todays challenge but hopefully the bug will be checked into at some point in time.

Are you sure you didn't play them in the last 30 days? Both of these titles qualify for "Mission Impossible" which you completed December 29. If you replayed them for the mission, this would explain why they don't show.

If you're absolutely sure, can you give me links to the quiz so that I can check the scores shown? Thanks!

I just edited my post, was going to call it a day. Thanks for you reply. Yes, I'm sure. The sports one listed me as havin played Dec. 1, 2012. Forget the date for the Humanities but similar time.
The quiz names were "Obscure Musical Theater" and "The Obscure Sports".
They are both "older" quizzes I believe, if that would matter.
Thanks

The titles alone don't help me since I can't locate them from a quiz search (none of the keywords show them in the top 60 hits). Do you have a complete link or the exact subcategory they were in so I can find the exact quizzes?

(By the way - why do you specifically want to play these two? ANY Humanities quiz and Sports quiz will do to get those categories).