I like the idea of "once a week" so that we can all prepare ourselves. Since the beginning of the month, we seem to have had nothing but niche topics so thank you for putting in the fix, Terry.

I also like dippo's suggestion but not sure if it's easily do-able.

One of my teammates, albert11 (sure Albert won't mind a name check), has made a suggestion on our team boards that may be of interest.

One of the problems I have (and possibly others) with all of the very general Team Heroes topics is that they are easy questions that get selected and the result is a speed contest dominated by players that are very fast, have seen the questions many times before or both.

But even in those generalised categories there must be harder questions? Why not let Team Heroes pick questions with a lower percentage answered correctly for generalised topics? That would add more interest to the game and create a more inclusive contest, less of a speed contest.

Is that of interest Terry? Anyone else?

"Why not let Team Heroes pick questions with a lower percentage answered correctly for generalised topics? That would add more interest to the game and create a more inclusive contest, less of a speed contest."

A good idea but it might have the unintended consequence of almost freezing the individual high score records in the Team Record Book. If the standard of questions is much harder than before, then the chances of individual high score records being broken becomes remote.

As a famous FT player once said: You can fix all the problems some of the time, and some of the problems all the time, but you cannot fix all the problems all the time ;-)

Wise words indeed. I have no answer to that one, but then I'm not an answer man, more of an ask questions man.

Wednesdays to be obscure topic day then? Very specialised today!

Seriously? It's a major world religion, hardly that specialised.

Which goes to show that even though we're well into page 7 of this thread that is 13 months old, no one can agree on which topics are niche, specialized or obscure.

Yes, seriously. A quiz on a specific religion? Wouldn't you equate that to a quiz on a specific tv show or movie? If it's a tv show I would watch I'm fine, just like if it's the religion my parents exposed me to as a child then I'd do fine. If it's a tv show I don't watch not so good, a religion I did not grow up being exposed to not so good. Makes sense to me!

If it had been about a specific congregation in a small town in Eastern Europe, I would consider that specialised. I didn't grow up in that religion, yet managed 13/15 simply from knowledge gleaned from friends, reading, TV shows and playing quizzes on FunTrivia. General knowledge, if you will.

I wouldn't consider the topic of Judaism to be a niche topic any more than I'd consider Christianity to be a niche topic.

Agreed.

Hmm, yesterday's scores give credence to the last few posts? Maybe not.

Top two large teams only had one perfect scorer each...

I think the one thing that is clear from this discussion is that there is no clear-cut definition of niche. If a person loves a topic, then it isn't niche to them, if someone else is totally unfamiliar, it becomes niche to them. Having a perfect score in a topic doesn't make it more or less obscure. I would have played Judaism but I forgot to play. I am not Jewish, but I've picked up some knowledge just by living a little while. I know that my lack of interest in sports doesn't make that topic a niche one. I think all topics with a big enough question pool should be eligible to be chosen in the Duel, the Heroes games, Expert and any other such competitions. Some days I will bomb but others will shine. That's the nature of team games and head-to-head match-ups.

It seems to me that this is what we should be aiming for in Heroes. The site is filled with games where the top scorers on the biggest teams dominate, and Heroes should be something a little different. So if that's been the result the last few days, it's a sign the game is on the right track.

I totally agree, I really enjoyed yesterdays heroes and love to see teams who have someone with the genuine knowledge come to the fore instead of just the quickest.

But it has not been the result of the couple of days that came before it. On those two days the majority of my team (and most teams) scored 15.

Mainly, I'm just happy Terry fixed the records, that was the big thing that irritated me. Now that's right I'm satisfied. I'll be playing it regardless of what the topics are, I like expert and heroes to me is the team version of expert so I love it. Would just like to see the variety we get on expert, but I won't lose any sleep over it.

Very few speed demons today!

Yeah, yesterday was a refreshing change of pace.

Our team's individual record score for each day going back from today (minus yesterday) has been 1464, 1457, 1466, 1461, 1449 and 1435 for song Mixture, War History, UK Geography, Mixed UK, Celebrity Squares and Horses respectively. In the past seven days I'd say we've only had two categories that were no speed contests (Crafts and Horses).

I like the new categories. 'New' is the operative word here. Who wants to play the same stale categories day after day, week after week? I for one enjoy having a shot to set a record in a new category instead of trying to make one that a former member may have set years ago that is over 1470 or 1480 that is never going to be broken in a million years.

I don't know what the solution is but I know nothing about 'Star Wars Books' interests me as a category. Does anybody want to play a category where half the teams will have an average below 600 or 700?

It seems everyone just wants a participation trophy or to have a chance to win. You can join a team that wins if that's what you're seeking out. Another thing, not every team is going to win at every game. I routinely hit it out of the park on certain games. But my team never wins those games in a month. My team is a pretty strong Heroes competitor but there just aren't really any others that we have a chance to win. That's fine, and that's just reflective of the fact that not every team wins every game. So focus at what you're good at but realize for everyone one who's embittered at the new changes there are people who are satisfied.

Also, I want to see Math! That one never seems to come up. But I suspect people would complain about that one too, even if it's not a "speed demon" category!

I also want to make the point about the Everything Challenge. Not many people have won this badge, which I actually think is among my favorite challenges. I even recently improved upon the score I made when I originally won the badge back in 2014. To this day I occasionally even try to break my new record. This is a very hard badge to win because for most people to win it, you're going to have to score near your maximum in nearly every game it requires. You might can get one, maybe two bad plays, but the majority of your scores are going to be very high, maybe even records. It's a very high bar and I can tell you without a few easy rounds in Heroes where a good player can hit 1450 and higher, that Everything challenge is pushed out of the realm of likelihood. So therefore, I think a mix is good. And once again, I enjoy getting to see some new categories for once.

We've had Maths a couple of times and I like it!

Definitely a mix of easy ones and more obscure is the balance I would like to see. I don't think anyone wants to see very specialised topics everyday but at the moment most of the days are very much speed contests. I have come to play it today and found that my team already has quite a nice average so I have played it in a very different manner, just racing through as fast as I could to make sure I had a time that would improve the average. Unfortunately I got one wrong so didn't, some days I would have got a fifteen and got a place amongst the Heroes. I hold many of our team records so having speed contests doesn't necessarily affect my chances of helping the team out but I much prefer those days when I help the team out by being one of the only ones with the genuine knowledge on a specific topic, not just because I'm fast.

I don't see it that way at all. But I suppose it would be helpful if someone had a record of what topics had been played. Interestingly enough, my team and I were talking about Heroes a few days ago. I noted how two days in a row we had British topics, UK History and then the very next day was United Kingdom. And then two days after that it was Crafts. I simply disagree that these topics are speed demon topics. Very few people have extensive enough knowledge of these fields to blow through them in seconds. Now U.K. Is a bit different because I suppose it would be like an American taking a general US History quiz, should be pretty simple. But not everyone here is British and not everyone here knows British history all that well. This is perhaps an opportunity for teams like The British or Scotland the Brains to shine but others, especially ones without British members may fall behind. Which is totally okay. It's a variation. But I just showed that in the last week, actually more like five to six days, three of the topics were not speed demon topics except for maybe specific teams. So I see there being a mix already and disagree that it's too far in the direction of general material, to the disadvantage of specialized material