Fair play?

[L9UR9]

If a player tries to "game" the system by only playing one high-scoring word and clicking through 49 other games in an attempt to secure the first place trophy for highest Average Points Per Word, should that be allowed? (This is not a hypothetical question).

Might it not be fairer to require a minimum number of games to be played, and/or setting a minimum percentage for average words per game?

[Spike1005]

Originally Posted by L9UR9

If a player tries to "game" the system by only playing one high-scoring word and clicking through 49 other games in an attempt to secure the first place trophy for highest Average Points Per Word, should that be allowed? (This is not a hypothetical question).

Might it not be fairer to require a minimum number of games to be played, and/or setting a minimum percentage for average words per game?

lalatan/thinkbig once suggested a minimum of around 25 words, and I'd go along with that. I don't really like a minimum points/game, since I generally end up with a lot more games than words. (Even if I don't play anything, I'll let the time run out just to see the longest word that had been played before,)

[dannyb]

It is just a different way to play. I have no problem with playing one word per board. I would find it boring, but obviously some people like it.

[Spike1007]

As you (and lots of others) have noted, there are no "house" imposed rules for highest points/word, aside from one word, 51 boards. The only other rule (to state the obvious) should be that if you beat someone else out for a trophy, they may not like it, but they should at least feel like you've earned it. Since I ended up (as Spike1005) mostly on thinkbig's tail, I'm happy to stick to the 25 word minimum that he suggested.

The "system" you discovered has probably occurred to pretty much everybody going for this trophy. I'm not above that at least some (or most?) of the time (and I definitely won't turn down a board where a long word has been found). Just being able to find long words is a skill, even if they've already been found. Given the choice though, I'd rather play (looking for my own new long words even if I don't find any) than click all day. (That's why, as Spike1007, I'll only take words that haven't been found before. I won't get a trophy for that (at least not #1), but it's more fun for me. Also it lets me see my name on more boards with the longest or highest-scoring word.)

[crazykate]

Although my own self-imposed rule is to stay close to a one word per game minimum (when I play for the points per word average), I'd be happy if even just a 10-word minimum were implemented in the scoreboards. That wouldmake it impossible to exploit that particular loophole too much (one 43 point word plus 50 blank games shouldn't be an instant trophy in my opinion.)

[Spike1007]

Originally Posted by crazykate

Although my own self-imposed rule is to stay close to a one word per game minimum (when I play for the points per word average), I'd be happy if even just a 10-word minimum were implemented in the scoreboards. That wouldmake it impossible to exploit that particular loophole too much (one 43 point word plus 50 blank games shouldn't be an instant trophy in my opinion.)

This is kind of a tricky question. I assume the scoring rules (which have this huge loophole, and that most agree are kind of stupid & unfair) won't change, so we're on our own. My current view is that if you want to claim the trophy from someone, it's only fair to find out the rules they play by (if they're not laid out somewhere & as long as they're reasonable) and follow those.

Anyway, I assume that things (currently accepted "rules") will change over time. There will always be new players who discover the loophole, think they're brilliant, and wonder why nobody's thought of that before. Whatever the rules, there will be players who try to do the bare minimum & win, while others try to make it more challenging for themselves with self-imposed rules.

By the way, I think 10 words is kind of low. (As Spike1005 I had that by December 3rd, I think, but this has been an exceptionally good (or lucky) month.) Also, while I admire your 1 word/game rule, I could never do that. When I can't find the current longest word on the board, I want to let the game play out so that I can see what the hell it was & maybe find it next time.

[lalatan]

Originally Posted by Spike1007

This is kind of a tricky question. I assume the scoring rules (which have this huge loophole, and that most agree are kind of stupid & unfair) won't change, so we're on our own.

I agree that nothing is going to change from the admin side. Despite years of people's rantings on this forum, all the same problems persist.
A 25 word minimum would be fair to me. I think it's wrong to award a trophy for having blanked over 50% of games played (e.g. bwt1213's Nov 3rd place trophy for playing 10 words for the month). To me that's an award for doing more of nothing than actually playing.

[MegaWord]

It's really a flawed competition in that one can win it with only one word. Admin should change this to where one should have at least 1 word per game for the 51 games. At this point players are just exploiting this flaw at their own discretion, which can cause strife when one's discretion differs from another. When someone averages 45 points on 5x5 with 1 word, they can simply say that was their self-imposed rules. It would be like being able to win high average score by only scoring high on one game, rather than the Admin-imposed 51 games.

[Spike1007]

Originally Posted by MegaWord

It's really a flawed competition in that one can win it with only one word. Admin should change this to where one should have at least 1 word per game for the 51 games. At this point players are just exploiting this flaw at their own discretion, which can cause strife when one's discretion differs from another. When someone averages 45 points on 5x5 with 1 word, they can simply say that was their self-imposed rules. It would be like being able to win high average score by only scoring high on one game, rather than the Admin-imposed 51 games.

I was going to suggest that one way to close the loophole is to not count "empty" games as games played. However, you just beat me to it. That would definitely make it harder on me, but it would be fair. Empty games count against you when you go for points/game.

[flops]

still playing for fun, and maybe to stave off dementia, and definitely to procrastinate. I don't mean to offend anyone for whom wordtwist is 42, but is there a secret prize (apart from staying sane and delaying humdrum tasks) that I don't know about?

I have an internal "yaaay" when a player who I admire, and have had entertaining moements with in the forums, wins an award, but like....you can't acutally melt those trophies down, can you? That is my long winded way of saying chill, relax, have fun everyone!

(and this coming from someone who wants to carry around a black texta to correct things like "potatoe's" when passing the greengrocers...). Peace out. xx