I assume that the 'elitist' comment was aimed at me and Flopsy. If you feel that way, I'm sorry, but I don't see that that believing that the monthly badge is becoming too easy to win is elitist. The badge is an award for being one of the top scorers over the month, and to get it for finishing outside of the top 100 scorers doesn't seem much of an achievement to me.

The only person who can decide is Terry, in any case, so it will stay as it is no matter what any of us say, unless he chooses to change it.

My remark, not meant to offend, wasn't directed at anyone in particular; it's just something I have noticed at FT lately, that there seems to be too much concern about making things too easy, when there are so many people who are really struggling, and are not finding FT as fun as they might. I could have been more diplomatic, but really I have been so amazed at some of the sentiments expressed that it was really too difficult to find le mots justes.

Happy Holidays and especially a happy new year. Peace.

As someone who has been struggling for years to get the Who Am I monthly badge (actually, I resigned myself long ago to not getting it, but it looks as if it might actually happen this month), I get the sense that a lot of newer members here think that badges will all be as easy to accumulate as the intentionally easy introductory ones are. Most of them do take a lot of work, often over a number of months. And some cannot be earned at all, you either get lucky or you don't. If you find the activities you do enjoy, and don't worry about all the others, you will maximise your own enjoyment of what is on offer. There is so much variety that it doesn't seem to me that any significant changes to what already exists need to be made. Anybody who feels that they are really struggling, and not enjoying themselves, would probably be better off with a change of activity focus.

Well put.

I believe I've brought up the 'too easy' argument before and usually I mention it in reference to quizzes, simply because we try to avoid giving free points. That being said, a number of my recent quizzes have been rated 'Very Easy'.

I bring 'too easy' up in reference to badges because there are a great deal of relatively straight-forward, 'easy' badges and badgelets to be won, many of which you can do quite quickly if you have gold membership and a month or two of time. In fact, you could probably get to level 100 breaking minimal sweat (I got 100 without any monthlies) or cumulative badges. Terry and Wes (in particular) are working very hard to create long-term advancement without diluting the achievements currently in place. Some badges aren't meant to be achievable by everybody. Some, as can be seen, are retired.

I'll be the first to play new badges/badgelets when they're introduced, and I'll even go so far as to suggest new ones, but I also understand the reasoning behind trying to make things a bit more difficult and restrict the amount of 'easy' ones out there. The site can still be fun without winning everything (at least I hope). There's more to do at FunTrivia than most other sites and plenty of new things being added to worry about the challenges I'm not able to complete right now.

Gracious1, I was not offended by your remark. Looney_Tunes has put things well in her comment. The object of the site is to enjoy playing, and maybe writing, quizzes. The earning of badges is a by product of that, not the main purpose of FT. When I started playing, there were very few badges and I earned the ones I did achieve almost accidentally. The addition of badges has enhanced the site, and I do like the challenge of winning them, but I would still be here, playing and writing quizzes, if they were all removed.

As the Monthly badges are earned by a combination of rankings based on average scores and total points, I'm wondering whether there is any information available to compare the badge earning scores when the badges were introduced with those being achieved now to get them. My thinking is that those who earned their badges early on will have improved over the years and have higher scores now than when they earned their badges and today's winners, wherever they are in the rankings, may be getting the badge with similar scores to those the early winners achieved when they got theirs. In which case, it could be argued that earning the badge has not become easier - it is of a similar difficulty.

And what about the Obscurity badge? And the Gold Madness Monthly? It looks like I will be getting both of these for free. I have hardly played the games at all. That means they are too easy, in my opinion. I think it would enhance those specific games to award the badge to less people per month. I think I am 2nd in line for both.

I'm not trying to be critical or elitist; I am just offering feedback.

backs out of thread feeling thick

lol! But that's the point, really. No brains needed! I get about 50% correct on the madness games, and more in Obscurity but that's only because I google. The games are definitely difficult, and fun; it's just the respective monthly badges that are too easy. I should have had to play for more than half the month and get a few more correct, in my opinion.

The way I see it is that you have to be the best in the month, so whether that requires you to play for less than half the month or not is irrelevant - you're up against the other players that month, so it depends how they perform. It's kind of like in schools if they do relative marking - one year you could get an A for the same piece of work you would get a B for next year. I don't think it's a fair system in schools, but I think it works for FT games. It all depends on the competition, I think. If it's an easier achievement, well, everyone should be in that same boat, and so has "the same" chance of achieving the badge as you do! (Thus increasing the competition and making it a bit harder, if that makes sense. :P)

Just my two cents. I personally think things are o.k. the way they are. Some monthlies are more easy than others, but that's to be expected, I think.

Okay, you know, I started this thread because I wanted to say something about the rankings disappearing from certain games and from other places. I would like to get back to that.

I am very pleased that several of the hourly games have returned to showing the top 500. I would really like to see the same with the Obscurity game, which shows only 100.

Also, I would like to be able to see ALL the members on a team using the "List Members" link, which used to show EVERYBODY, even inactive people, but now it only shows 100 of them, too.

That's exactly how I feel about the site, and I too have acquired several badges by accident.

Nothing wrong with any of that, Reeshy, very well put; certainly I never thought for a moment that anything was unfair, but I absolutely think that Obscurity and Madness Monthly badges were expected/intended to be more of a challenge than they currently are.

And here's the proof -- extracts from the badge blurbs:

Message:

"......the madness has an end for you now! Be it a photographic memory, a knack for insanely fast research, sheer obscure knowledge or a combination of some or all of these, you have conquered one of our extra-difficult games on a consistent basis and demonstrated that you are one of the greatest all-around trivia buffs on this planet.

Behold the Monthly Winner: Gold Member Madness badge .....your reward for...persistence!... "


Message:

".....Congratulations! .....in your quest to defeat the hardest monthly game available at FunTrivia.com, so we proudly present you with the Obscure monthly winner badge. ..."

I'm leaning towards a "top 100" cutoff for all cumulative monthlies, starting next month.

It was certainly a lot harder to win when you were competing against everyone. A limit of "top 100" will at least force some minimum level of difficulty as we go forward.

I love Wes's suggestion of taking your best 150 games. Even though I've got all the monthly badges, I don't try to do well in the monthly tournaments anymore because it's simply a grind and ends up rewarding the people who have the most free time.

I think "top 100" is too strict. Perhaps a "top 150"?

It isn't right that champions keep playing and playing and playing, and locking newcomers out of opportunities.

I'm not sure it was harder before, people were less experienced two years ago than they are now.

I won the monthly badges, but frankly they put me off most of the games that I won them in, beacuse I had to play them 12 hours a day. Not sure it should be a game that rewards people who have free time.

I'm in favour of the 'top 100' cut-off, as being the simplest change that's also reasonably fair. I think it's perfectly possible to win a monthly on that basis without playing endless games - so long as your average score per game is pretty decent.

I don't know why people like Gracious1 feel the need to attack other players for playing Funtrivia games they enjoy. I'm assuming I'm one of the people being referred to as "keep[ing] playing and playing and playing, and locking newcomers out of opportunities." Like other 'champs' I play some games regularly after I've won the monthly badges because I enjoy playing them, and still find them challenging - not to thwart Gracious1 or anyone else!

Raising the cut-off point from the top 30 originally was the right thing to do as it was beginning to make it too difficult for non-champs - but now the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

The top 100 cut-off is a decent compromise for long-term management of the badge and I don't think it will even come into play that much. Player bases change and it seems that lower ranges of 70 to 80 are almost stable in the long run, similarly to how the GC mostly stabilized with having its lower edge Immortals at about 65th overall.

If the 100 limit, once implemented, should ever result in a game awarding fewer than 5 monthlies in one month, we might want to take a look at changing it again, but I don't see that happening for the next several years at current rates.

As I've pointed out before, the purpose of the site is to play quizzes and games and NOT the winning of virtual badges. The champions are already transferred to their own division, which they weren't previously, and I think Terry has made it as fair as possible.

Wesley is the statistics expert, so if he is saying that the 100 limit is unlikely to apply anyway, I wouldn't even think about arguing.

Any idea if the list of all team members was lost too? I like to see when team members were last active. It seems to only list 100.

Sorry, really, it wasn't meant to be an attack. Just trying to point out how there are things built into the system that erect barriers that can be difficult to penetrate, as current players become more experienced and play faster and better. I would imagine it is harder to achieve certain badges and other accomplishments now than two years ago because of the increased level of competition against the experience and accomplishment of current players.

Peace.