'Easy' does not seem to tally with the time it is taking people to do this one. Where do 'mild and 'tricky' come in the pecking order? We don't get given these options. Assume it is easy, mild, moderate, tricky, hard. Very easy to make a mistake with no means of finding where one went wrong except by use of 'show wrong' which always gives me a sense of failure! Also, difficult to disentangle all the possible digits in any one square even whilst obeying all the rules.
Posted 13th Aug 2012 at 23:51
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has not played this puzzle yet
Easy < Mild < Moderate < Tricky < Hard < Fiendish
Users can choose easy, moderate or hard and the others are based on equal division of the ratings count into sixths once it is averaged. In fact it's clear I should bias this to make the easy band narrower and the hard band wider.
Until several months ago puzzles were rated on a scale of 1 to 10, but 99% of users never selected anything other than 1, 2 or 3 when rating a puzzle - or occasionally 10. The 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 were not used, essentially. So I simplified it to easy, moderate, hard.
Other sites such as Youtube have switched to an even simpler "good" or "bad" (thumbs up/thumbs down, for example) - it turns out the only way to get useful ratings is to make the choice very simple and then use the maths of it to work out what it really means on the basis of many people choosing.
Gareth, puzzlemix
Posted 13th Aug 2012 at 23:54 Last edited by gareth 13th Aug 2012 at 23:58
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has not played this puzzle yet
And also to say, there is definitely a big psychological part in the easy/moderate/hard selection that varies depending on the player, before you even consider varying experience and expectations. (And of course relative difficulties depend on what you're comparing against too).
One thing would be to try pictures instead of words, e.g. stars or happy/unhappy faces - but it isn't obvious what the best choice would be. Stars really need a caption, so if you label 1 star easy and 3 stars hard that hasn't helped; and faces may not be so clear in meaning.
Any ideas, anyone? (If you do, please feel free to start a new topic in the 'Discussion forum' - only those who have this puzzle set can comment here).
You can however view other players' statistics and their comments in the tables above.
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Key
A yellow/light blue highlight in the time distribution charts highlights your time, where relevant.
Rating scores out of 10.0 show the average difficulty rating chosen by users, where 1.0 is "Easy" and 10.0 is "Hard".
If a puzzle is opened more than once, including by loading from a saved position, then this is potentially a significant aid so it is listed as being completed with 'multiple sessions' for the purpose of the best time/average rating displays above.
Minor aid is defined as no more than one use of 'Check solution' when incomplete and/or no more than one use of 'Check solution' when wrong; and/or using highlighting aids (show repeated digits, show broken inequalities and show valid/invalid placements [slitherlink] only). Major aid is any and all other use of the solving aids except for 'show wrong'.
Users can choose easy, moderate or hard and the others are based on equal division of the ratings count into sixths once it is averaged. In fact it's clear I should bias this to make the easy band narrower and the hard band wider.
Until several months ago puzzles were rated on a scale of 1 to 10, but 99% of users never selected anything other than 1, 2 or 3 when rating a puzzle - or occasionally 10. The 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 were not used, essentially. So I simplified it to easy, moderate, hard.
Other sites such as Youtube have switched to an even simpler "good" or "bad" (thumbs up/thumbs down, for example) - it turns out the only way to get useful ratings is to make the choice very simple and then use the maths of it to work out what it really means on the basis of many people choosing.
Gareth, puzzlemix
Last edited by gareth 13th Aug 2012 at 23:58
One thing would be to try pictures instead of words, e.g. stars or happy/unhappy faces - but it isn't obvious what the best choice would be. Stars really need a caption, so if you label 1 star easy and 3 stars hard that hasn't helped; and faces may not be so clear in meaning.
Any ideas, anyone? (If you do, please feel free to start a new topic in the 'Discussion forum' - only those who have this puzzle set can comment here).
You can however view other players' statistics and their comments in the tables above.