An idea:

What if each major quiz category was set up like a martial arts color category?

Could be based on cumulative questions correct for the category or maybe a percentage of total questions right for whole category. Since some categories have many more questions than others.

Maybe 0 to 1000 questions: white belt
1000 to 3000 questions: yellow belt
Etc...

OR

It could be based on all players in a ranking.

Top 100 players with most questions correct in a category are black belts
101 to 250 are brown belts
251 to 1000 are greenbelts
Etc

OR

Giving one credit for each quiz where 50% or more questions answered correctly.

Might give players something to shoot for in a category and possibly master it. Might encourage quiz exploration.

Just a thought for those of us who enjoy playing quizzes more than speed games.

Has any player played every quiz in a category?

Just a thought. No idea if it would be a coding nightmare or if that type of data is easily used.

You have an original idea, but it seems a bit incongruous with the present awards.

In any case there is already the "All Round Quizzer" which requires numerous excellent results in at least 19 out of the 20 categories, so those who have claimed this medal will probably already have explored all categories.

At present there are already over 2,200 players who have the title of "All Round Quizzer", and five of them have reached Tier 7 (perfect score in 75 quizzes in each category during a single calendar month).

Jan, that's a great idea! I did that badge before it was upgradable and didn't realize it had that option now. I kind of forgot about it. That will keep me busy for a bit.

As for 'reward' I was thinking it might be cool to have it not be tied into badges so much but rather be more of a ranking system like total KOs or total brains or total points for that matter.

I also figured there might be some who REALLY love Geography or History or science or even Video Games and due to that love they have played a bunch of quizzes. They may be a master of just one or two categories but for those categories they own it. Not so much to gain a badge but simply because they want to learn more trivia in that area. I am sure there are some who have played hundreds or even thousands of hours of quizzes just out of curiosity.

Anyway, it has been rattling around in my head for a bit. It might be a technical nightmare or quite possibly something only I would think is cool. Just a suggestion.

Would it be possible to add the possibility to search for usernames with wildcards here? Sometimes I can't remember a player's name exactly, and it would be good to be able to pull up a list of similar names to find the person you are looking for.

Not sure where to put this, but in the track and Field Mixed Authors quiz in today's Duel - today being your 17 Feb - there's a country and western music question in the middle of it

That probably just means that the original quiz had an out-of-category question in there. (And not everyone gets the same set of duel questions, so not everyone will have seen it, either. I certainly didn't when I played.)

Another question for Terry really but I’m sure others may feel happy to chip in.

With the current ongoing changes to the hourly games to make the system more fair in terms of how it matches players up I wondered if consideration might be given to doing something similar with Knockout? At the moment the best way of describing how play in this game goes would be the Peter principle. It has been well documented on others threads by keen observers amongst the Funtrivia faithful that the best way to get back to winning ways in KO once you have achieved your ceiling is actually to sit out for at least 6 months and not play it so that you (hopefully) drop down a bit and have more chance of picking up victories.

I know that some practice this, but it seem ridiculous to have to not participate in order to find opponents of a similar level.

Can something be devised based on average scores, or wins? A bit like duel perhaps?

Oh yes please, what nasty-liar said. I'm on a 'sitting it out' phase right now and it's a real pain. Last time I sat it out for over a year, started playing again, got a reasonable number of wins (and a reasonable number of losses) but as soon as I got back to the top few sets it wouldn't let me out again no matter how many times I lost - it doesn't drop me down. Meanwhile, everyone else I'd consider to be on my level don't have the same yoyo effect working against them so they've amassed wins and got badges I despair of ever winning.

Yes, the algorithm for KO can be tweaked to factor in average scores and wins. That data simply didn't exist when the game was first made, so it went with what we had. I'm sure it can be subtly tweaked a bit to place more emphasis on skill.

Indeed, someone laid it out beautifully on another thread but I have no idea where. But they were suggesting (and my experience concurs with) that because of the points for winning one, two and three games and the fact that players drop out for a while or forever that you can tick yourself over in divisions that are effectively beyond your capability.

This is what I currently find. For the past three or four years I think I have won about once a year, possibly twice in one of those. What’s that? 2%? I don’t mind that at all, I am always inspired by difficult tasks but it just seems like something that could be altered now instead of your opponents being effectively determined by how long you have been playing the game, much like the levels did in the hourlies.

Another vote in favour of this idea.

I have what I think is a good idea as to how to revamp the seedings for the KO. First, it will only use the point accumulated in the last 4 years. That way those who've been playing forever don't get penalized for points they accumulated years ago when there were fewer people playing.

Next step is to make the points in the calculation deteriorate 25% per year. So your points that determine your division are based on the following formula:

Points in Last 12 months + (Points 13-24 months ago x 0.75) + (Points 25-36 months ago x 0.50) + (Points 37-48 months ago x 0.25).

And to discourage players from sitting out to avoid getting points or being a No Show, players are given 1 extra point for each week that they don't play (starting with the first week they play) and 1 point for each No Show (meaning someone who is a No Show on a Wednesday would get 2 points for the week, 1 for the win on Tuesday and 1 for the No Show).

Newer players will still be facing primarily other newer players (especially during the first year) but someone who has been around for 15 years won't necessarily be in a stronger division than someone who has only been here for 5.

Players would still see their actual lifetime total (not including the artificial sit out/no show points described above), but an explanation could be made that matchups are based on more recent results so someone with 100 lifetime points isn't intimidated when they play someone with 500.

That sounds good, but can you explain how that will address the Peter Principle? It seems that people will still rise in ranks to the point that they can no longer get past the first day.

I see what you mean about not incentivizing sitting out, but actually penalizing people because they choose to sit out a week or a month or half a year (maybe they are busy or ill, or just need a break), or because the fail to show up (again, real life could intervene) goes too far IMHO.

I mean basically, what you've devised is a kind of trap. Once you start playing, you can never stop, or you will suddenly find yourself facing opponents who far surpass you in skill and being placed in tournaments that are too high a level for you.

This might actually have the contrary effect of discouraging people from playing; once they discover that they are placed far above their ability, they just might quit altogether and never play again.

I definitely understand about life getting in the way. I'm going to miss 2 weeks of KO in March when I go on vacation and won't have Wi-Fi.

The 1 point is not meant as a penalty. 1 point is your expected point total in a KO if the results were completely random (each division awards 16 points among 16 players). So the idea is basically to keep you from dropping into easier divisions or pushing you into harder divisions. Another option would be to just base your division placement on your average points per week in weeks that you play. The main point is that a veteran player doesn't skip a month or two just to get into a bracket with a bunch of players who've only been here for a couple of months.

What happened to the statistics about questions in the Gold Member Madness Game? All of them are listing that 0% of prior players have gotten the questions right. If all of the questions are so new that they are only just now appearing in the game, then why is that statistic listed?

An idea:

What if there was an "Ultimate Cool Quiz takers" badge? Maybe for taking 500 or 1000 of the top rated quizzes? So any of the sunglasses quizzes would count? Could be a upgradable badge.


Would be cool to have a link to the current top 500 top rated quizzes as they are often the most fun or interesting to play. Also might be cool for top quiz writers to see where their best quizzes rank.

Anyway I'd enjoy playing the top 500 rated quizzes but don't see any way to figure out which those are.

A second variant could be playing 200 of the editors choice quizzes. Not sure how many of those there are but usually they are also high quality fun.

I wouldn't want to encourage those who wouldn't normally take a quiz just because it is a sunnies or editors' choice to take them for the purpose of earning a badge. The ratings would probably hurt the quizzes taken, and they can easily slip out of sunnies status. The fact that they are good quizzes and a quiz-taker has an interest in the topic or the author should be the driving force behind seeking these out.

Just my two cents.

I agree with the idea people should play quizzes simply because they are interested. People should also play hourly games because they are fun.

However most badges on here are acknowledgements for either playing games or playing quizzes. Not sure how this would be different.

I think this site has an incredible wealth of well written quizzes. A badge that encourages playing the best quizzes seems like it could only bring someone back for more.

As for somehow hurting the ratings I guess I don't understand how. I believe there are over 100,000 quizzes so if the top 20% get a cool quiz then there are many to choose from. Anyone could find 1000 on topics they enjoy. So IF the quiz is well written seems like it should not have a problem with keeping the sunny. The only ones I would see at risk are possibly the oldest quizzes back before all the extra info was important.

Anyway it seems like it would be a fun badge to me.

I think you will find that there are no old quizzes with no II that have sunnies. And other authors may be able to confirm this effect in other contexts, but one example that comes to mind for me is when a quiz shows up as the quiz of the hour. It often falls in ranking and loses its honors because of the extra play it gets, which is not garnered through interest in the subject matter, but by virtue of its having been randomly being selected as a quiz of the hour. Not everyone rates quizzes based on quality, unfortunately, some rate them based on their own performance on the quiz.

I still don't think that badges should be awarded for playing the better-rated quizzes on the site. There are enough competitions that are based on topic (Cats, etc.) that reward playing quizzes based on thematic selection.

Sue

That happens with the Bus Ride, too

And the Races.

Hmm... That's too bad.

I try hard to be fair based on quality rather than favorite topics but I guess not everyone tries to be fair.

Well the badge part is not all that important.

I played a great quiz a few days ago and thought it would be great if the top 300 or 500 rated quizzes were in a list to make them easier to find. It would probably be better if there were no incentives placed on them and then maybe they wouldn't loose their rating?

I will agree with you that I am all for encouraging people to rate quizzes more, I do want to say, because I think it goes a long way not only in better sorting our content, but giving our authors a little boost of confidence. Getting quizzes to the minimum threshold, for some quizzes, is a big deal since some niche topics just don't get a push for a long time.

Based on the races and bus ride and whatnot, we've just seen that people being asked to run through the motion for a secondary goal (ie. a task or a badge) aren't necessarily looking at quizzes outside of that; the rating process is an aside for them and they're, by-and-large, forced to play topics that are outside their comfort zones. It makes the ratings a bit artificial for those quizzes and, more often than not, they end up getting really high ratings or really low ratings; it's tough to find an in-between.