I love the new Fifty-Fifty game, I really do, but feel that many of the 3rd level questions are verging on impossible rather than difficult.

According to the 50/50 game page, "Your division is based on how you perform over time relative to others in this game." I'm wondering when relegation to the lower levels will kick in. Sometime soon, I hope. I would not be offended. Nosiree. Whenever you're ready...I'll be waiting.

LOL! Ditto

It is strange and seems backwards but sometimes I almost feel it is a disadvantage to not see all four choices. Many question/quiz writers here employ some classic test writing techniques and subsequently, players can employ the corresponding classic quiz taking tricks to eliminate choices when guessing.

For example, in a numeric answer set, often it is not the very largest or smallest so you can scratch two choices if completely guessing. That gets lost in 50/50.

Or with names, as a pseudo hint there is sometimes a wrong choice with the same first or last name as the right answer

Very easy to tweak difficulty levels. Is there a consensus that difficult should be easier?

I think difficult is the right challenge the way it is. Most of the time my scores aren't great, but I've managed to put together enough good scores to make level 6 in the mini badge which is better than I am at most timed games.

What might make sense would be to make people's division separate for each difficulty level. So someone who is accurate and fast on the Easy game might be in division 5 there but if they are finding Difficult too tough, they could easily be in Division 2 or 3 there.

I don't know how the levels are structured; I'm currently in Division 4. I don't know if that makes it harder or easier than Division 3 but it is what it is. The Difficult game is supposed to be difficult. It's frustrating at times but that's part of the game.

Division numbers change during the day - sometimes there are five divisions, sometimes 3, due to the varying number of people playing at those times. Division 4 is a higher standard than Division 3 at that time, but when there are only 3 divisions, 3 is the top.

I only compete against myself in this game, without even noticing what division I am in, and will probably never get to the next level in the easy game - I just don't have the speed, but might get lucky with a good set. Difficult game doesn't require as much speed, I just need a set that gives me 15 instead of 14 or 13, which I can do every couple of times I play Difficult. So I think Difficult is at a pretty good level.

I'm in agreement with the others who have replied thus far - no need to make it easier. It's supposed to be 'difficult'.

I think Difficult is fine how it is. It's difficult enough to make some people have to slow down and think about the question so that slow players, like me, can have a chance - it's the only division I can win, that's for sure. Not often but enough to make me keep going. However, it's not so difficult that all of the questions are impossible and there's nothing wrong with a few hard games.

Agree with the consensus so far, leave "Difficult" where it is.

I would tweak the Difficulty of the Difficult game some. I agree with Creedy that most of them are on the impossible leaning difficulty at the moment. I know that this varies based on timing and other factors but on average there are significantly less people playing the game from what I can see on the winners list. At the moment the Difficult 50-50 is just not as much fun as the easy or intermediate. This is different than the hourly easy-mixed-smartest where the smartest is still as fun as the others. andymuenz has a great idea about blocking players into different divisions based on their performances on each difficulty and I would support that as it's really three totally different games based on question difficulties. I'd recommend breaking the Monthly achievement 50-50 badge to each difficulty rather than globally. If possible, I would further add six hour blocks (East-Intermediate-Difficult) of Triathlon style points that could be awarded to encourage players to play all of the difficulties. There is inherently an incentive for most players to not play the Difficult set as this kills their average when going for the Monthly Badge in the 50-50 game. The same structure can be awarded whereby the top 50% of players get points from 25 for first down to 1 for the player at the 50% mark. Most importantly with the 50-50 game, it would really benefit from its own question set which would be nice to submit single questions to or even full quizzes over time. It's a great game and the two hour blocks rather than one hour blocks for it were a good idea and in time with some tweaks it can be even better.

I'm fine with leaving the difficulty levels alone but I do think it would be appropriate to move players up or down to other levels depending on their success (or non-success) in each of the easy, intermediate and difficult games. Is it possible to distinguish between the three and only move players based on their results in each of the games specifically?

"I'm fine with leaving the difficulty levels alone but I do think it would be appropriate to move players up or down to other levels depending on their success (or non-success) in each of the easy, intermediate and difficult games."

The algorithm already takes care of that.

The algorithm sorts players to different divisions for each difficulty currently? That doesn't seem to be the case. I'd definitely be in a lower division for difficult and probably intermediate too.

I definitely think Difficult is too hard at present - particularly when it comes to American based sports questions, such as which colleges various footballers or baseball players attended, and the mascots of same (who'd have a clue in Australia!) - and feel that level could be tweaked to make it slightly easier. Not to be spoon fed of course, but it's hard enough trying to compete at the speed level, let alone knowing the answers to some of those questions.

I don't know if the above were precise questions from the Difficult level, but it's an example of what I mean.

One such, however, asked the name of Charles Bukowski's first novel which was called after a place he worked in his first job. Not only have I never heard of Charles whatever (he's an American writer as I later found out but was still none the wiser) but how could anyone, apart from a devotee, know what his first job was?

Lol, and another question somewhere on the site a day or so ago was "Where was the first English lawnmower developed and subsequently the name of a local ale"? It made me laugh because it was so silly. England's first lawnmower for Pete's sake.

That type of questions is the same as asking what was the maiden name of Ned Kelly's mother, or at what Australian venue did Paul Hogan meet his first wife.

I think the questions have to be difficult (not impossible) BUT should be questions within the realm of an overarching difficult general knowledge.

This sums it up in a nutshell for me. I do feel that the 50/50 adds a level of complexity to questions that are already more obscure than the norm, and that is why the Difficult level is not as much fun to play as the other two.

Just another two cents,

Sue

If that's the case, I should be in level 3 or 4 for difficult. I'm in level 5 for all three.

I don't move between levels for easy, intermediate, and difficult. I don't know how I managed to get in the level I'm in for all three levels.

The division is based on your overall results - it's not separate for each difficulty. So you'll be in the same for all three game types until you next move up or down.

As a side note, I tend to have the opposite pattern of the other players here - I do quite well on Intermediate or Difficult but can't come close to the times people post on easy (and I'm also way too often thrown off course by some random actor question - I rarely care about who plays a role unless they do a complete botch job, so they're hard for me to remember)

"The algorithm sorts players to different divisions for each difficulty currently? That doesn't seem to be the case. I'd definitely be in a lower division for difficult and probably intermediate too."

No, you have a "division" for the entire game that is recalculated after every play. But, it takes into account relative scores each game rather than absolute scores. That way all 3 difficulty levels have equal weight.

Found another wording that needs to be filtered out - "All three of these".

Would it be helpful if we reported any anomalies in the Fifty-Fifty such as that?

If so, I guess you'd need to know which category the question was in, the date and the time? Fun Trivia time ie, per the home page?

I've come across a couple but figured you had it all in hand.

Creedy, if you send a correction on the question, then the editors can identify the exact question.

Or report the exact wording here, so Terry can filter it out.