There were extensive discussions about TvT "allowing" only their "best & brightest" play. I was a bit skeptical also then began to look at how a much smaller number of certain teams members played TvT vs played Team Heroes.
Perhaps waiting until the following day to show the TvT scores, as with KO, might help avoid this.

Playing as a team, not just a bunch of individuals whose scores are being amalgamated, you need to see the other scores for your team in TvT to help players who arrive later in the day judge whether or not they think they can get a score that will help the team. When I see that we already have a score that is higher than my average score in the game, I will decide not to play, since I am more likely to lower the team score than to raise it. I am free to make that decision, and consider it a tactical contribution to the team when I choose not to play.

For Team Heroes, however, no such decision is needed - even when I am 99% certain that I am going to do dreadfully, I can play and know that a dreadful performance just means I am not a Hero that day.

Looney, I don't think anyone doubts choices freely made by a player to play or not play a game unless it's in a team that has, together, decided to follow some rules. Some teams want only their pre-selected best to weigh in at TvT. Others make the decision based on the current score, then there are those where each player decides alone without any rules and yet others rather prefer play frequency over scores. The Cat People for example are the opposite of the highly competitive teams when it comes to TvT: as a team leader I actively encourage everyone to play all games even if it occasionally hurts a score because you can't ultimately get better if you don't play.

This free choice is what makes teams meaningful on the site. Every player should join a team whose play, chat and style are to their best liking.

Nicely stated, Wes. Much as I love cats, I'm clearly more of a llama than a cat person.

I'm not trying to convince you any differently

I'm guessing the actual TVT thread has scrolled off the front page lol.

This may have been mentioned already, but I'd like to make a suggestion regarding the "difficult" levels. Since the system obviously can track a certain number of individual scores for a game, can it also track a players BEST score? If so, pick any game (all of them, in fact), the best score you've had and add 10 (or whatever points) or fewer seconds to it. That will ensure a challenge that is difficult for EVERYone, as it's based on the individual's playing level/expertise alone. This would be much more fair than, say, "be in top 3 Heroes today", (or whatever) and then calling it a "MEDIUM" challenge, especially if you're on a team like CMM. I'm lucky to get on the list at all lol. (I'm NOT complaining, it's just an example lol)

There exist several challenges like that where you have to beat your a certain time that is tailored for you. I had one two days ago that was specific to Piece of Cake, and as a Medium Challenge I was asked to earn a score of 10/10 in fewer than 31 seconds. There are variations for earning points as well, such as 735 in Smartest. I think they're pretty well covered, with Med and Dif levels and a variety of games/times/scores, and they're all tailored to each individual player's statistics. So it's a great suggestion because we already have it in the game. You'll get them eventually if you haven't already...

31 seconds? I seem to get 18 or 19 to beat. I do think a lot of the challenges are tailored - I just hope they don't get any harder. My aging fingers can't move any faster!

Many of the challenges are indeed tailored and look at your recently played result. So unless your scores improve, rossian, you can be sure that your requirements will also be constant. If your fingers should however gain flexibility from the extra training, you might find yourself needing a second or two faster than before.

Scaling by actual performance is what is done for most of the points-based and speed-based challenges, a few of them just scale by level. Those which require a certain placing are the same for all.

That answered, now let's please go back to suggesting challenges here. This is supposed to be an easily read reference thread for Terry when he wants to code new stuff, so please keep it free of anything that isn't new challenge ideas! Thanks!

Rather than "point precision", try "point approximation". Player must score between 4000 and 5000 points in a day. Player loses if Points Today fall below 4000 or above 5000. Hard.

[Point value may be raised if not hard enough for Hard.]

"Play a Tiny Subcategory" challenge

Player must find a sub-category that has only 10 quizzes or fewer in its directory. Player must play all quizzes, scoring at least 4 correct answers each quiz.

Medium or Hard


Variation:
Player must find a sub-category containing only 4-10 quizzes. Player must play four quizzes, scoring 5 correct answers each quiz

Medium or Hard


Other variations possible.

Maybe there are already enough Nemesis type challenges but how about a challenge with WTE in which the scores for all four of the first games played are tallied, winner takes all? The odds of identical scores is decreased (maybe, but I'm no stats whiz), and it really would mean players had to choose their games carefully.

Who's the Expert has a built in advantage to gold members: you can see the next six scheduled categories and partially plan your pick of four. There is also a level perk where a category can get switched out. I just wanted to mention those situations as existing in that venue. They seem to be overlooked in a couple of WtE challenge suggestions.

Actually, that is not a gold member feature to see the next six, that is a level perk.

Only if it schedules you within your time limit.



In what way?

"Forgotten Gems Challenge"

Go to Forgotten Gems and play 10 quizzes, scoring 50% correct in each.

http://www.funtrivia.com/ql.cfm?forgotten=1

Difficulty: medium or hard



Variations (which may make it harder or easier):

- play 10 quizzes, each in a different category
- play 10 quizzes, each in the SAME category
- vary the number of the quizzes
- vary the minimum score

"Your Worst Category"

This would be a GM-only challenge.
Find you worst category from the Gold Member States page, and play 6 quizzes, scoring at least 8 questions correctly.

Give user the link:
http://www.funtrivia.com/goldstats.cfm

Worst = lowest percent correct

Difficulty: Hard


Variations:
Decrease the number of quizzes and/or the number of correct questions to make it a medium challenge

How about spicing up that one with a slight variant: Best OR Worst. Play 7 in your worst category with 8 correct OR 15 in your best one with a perfect score. Whichever category you first play a quiz in determines the goal you must complete - no changing your mind in midgame. (The challenge should give the categories, no need to go for the link and maybe miss because the table is 6 days old. That way we can also make it randomly pick from the bottom / top 3 instead of always serving the same ones)

Well, then you could have three different challenges:

[I] Find Your Best
Play 12 quizzes and get perfect scores on each.
(Fifteen sounds too tough.)

[II] Find Your Worst
Play 6 quizzes and answer at least 8 questions correctly on each.

[III] Find Your Best OR Worst
Do either [I] or [II].

I'm not sure I like being locked in; more fun to be able to pick and choose.

Also, perhaps a fourth variant:

[IV] Find Your Best AND Worst
Do both [I] and [II], but cut number of quizzes in half.
(6 best and 3 worst)

I increased the requirement to 15 so that people would feel more compelled to choose the "worst" variant if just going for a quick win and III and/or IV is enough. I and II are just repeats of the "score X in category Y" challenges, making certain categories effectively more likely to appear.

I am not sure I understand what you are saying in your last post.

Now when you say the categories would be given to the user, you still mean it would based on their percent correct, right?

And I like having just I or II because sometimes maybe you should challenge people to play their worst category or really push the envelope in their best. You could present the challenge a little differently:

[I]
"Your best category is X, with --.-% of questions correct. Play 12 quizzes in your best category and score perfectly on each."

[II]
"Your worst category is X, with --.-% of questions correct. Play 6 quizzes in your worst category and score at least 8 questions correct on each."

This would make it more interesting, I think. Give the user a little more info and maybe even surprise them. And then for the combos:

[III]
"Your best category is X, with --.-% of questions correct, and your worst category is Y, with --.-% of questions correct. Either play 12 quizzes in your best category and score perfectly on each, or play 6 quizzes in your worst category and score at least 8 questions correct on each."

[IV]
"Your best category is X, with --.-% of questions correct, and your worst category is Y, with --.-% of questions correct. Play 6 quizzes in your best category and score perfectly on each. Also play 3 quizzes in your worst category and score at least 8 questions correct on each."

Honestly, though I like the idea of the best and worst categories, I do not think this is possible. That link no longer shows stats for players like me... Once you play a certain amount of quizzes it stops scoring in that way and that page is blank. I see nothing in the link, and that is something I have not been able to use for a long time. The stats page on the profile has also been frozen in time for the last 20,000 quizzes or so for me as well.

Unless there is another way to find which is my worst category based on percentage, I would have absolutely no idea which to choose. Perhaps if it automatically told you what your best and worst were?

I second Gracious1's suggestion of the tiny subcategories. It's about time that these categories get more attention (and maybe it'll spark some ideas for our authors, as well).

It's in the cards!

Actually...one step ahead of you, if that's possible.

Well, it calls for a new Time Crunch at least.

No, that was an attempt to keep our nerves all strung tightly.

Well, yes, there is that. But it depends on when you began planning it.

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

I don't know if there's anything like this so far, but there could be a challenge where players have to find a quiz that's been online longer than 3-4 weeks, but still has the *NEW* tag (that is, a quiz that has been online long enough but has been rated less than 20 times). Then the players would have to play that quiz and answer correctly a minimum number of questions. Some variations of this are:

Easy level: Find 1 quiz with the above requirements and answer at least 5 questions correctly.

Medium level: Find 2-3 quizzes with the above requirements and answer at least 7 questions correctly in each.

Hard level: Find 4-5 quizzes with the above requirements and answer at least 8 questions correctly in each.

A possible variation of this could be asking the player to rate the quiz as well, but of course that would limit the challenge to GM only.

The point of this is to 'promote' obscure or unpopular quizzes, help them gain a few plays and, in the second variation, get ranked.

[Posted in correct topic]

-Nam

Lest Terry overlook the suggestion, I'll repeat it:


"Play a Tiny Subcategory" challenge

Player must find a sub-category that has only 10 quizzes or fewer in its directory. Player must play all quizzes, scoring at least 4 correct answers each quiz.

Medium or Hard


Variation:
Player must find a sub-category containing only 4-10 quizzes. Player must play four quizzes, scoring 5 correct answers each quiz

Medium or Hard