* cheating?

[denvergreene]

I'm not sure if the top people are cheating or if they're just really good at the game. All I know is that this is a terrible user experience for people just learning the game. Maybe it's because each game is so short, but going up against a very good person is just so crappy because the game ends and you have no idea how that could have just happened.

My suggestion to fix this issue is when I create a table a way to restrict people to similar ELO to me.

I love deduction games but it is absolutely not fun to go up against a pro who does zero checks and wins first turn. Maybe this game just isn't for me.

[JohnnyCyclops]

Just played my first competitive game, two-player, and big shout out to my opponent, a top-10 ELO, who won with a single verifier test and then stuck around to explain it to me when I asked them how they did it. Very clear set of logical steps they took. Sure, it looked like magic to me, who usually takes 5-6-7 verifier steps even on the simple ones, but I can see what they did and will learn from it.

That's great! Glad I'm not the only one happy to do this

To learn from the better players I looked at a game you played earlier today. https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=459919171

I see you went straight to the answer without a single test, 252, but I can't see why 242 couldn't also be a true answer, assuming the yellow square has to be the largest value. Without a single test, say to determine whether the yellow sqaure is odd/even, how did you land on 252 not 242 please?

[JohnnyCyclops]

I'm not sure if the top people are cheating or if they're just really good at the game. All I know is that this is a terrible user experience for people just learning the game. Maybe it's because each game is so short, but going up against a very good person is just so crappy because the game ends and you have no idea how that could have just happened.

My suggestion to fix this issue is when I create a table a way to restrict people to similar ELO to me.

I love deduction games but it is absolutely not fun to go up against a pro who does zero checks and wins first turn. Maybe this game just isn't for me.

Under "Play Now" (not Arena) you can restrict by ELO levels under settings when you're the one creating the table. I will limit to my own skill level as there's no enjoyment playing opponents who just 'deduce/guess/memorise' using zero tests. I'm mostly playing solo for the fun of solving the puzzles with no time pressure (with another player waiting on me).

[poptasticboy]

To learn from the better players I looked at a game you played earlier today. https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=459919171

I see you went straight to the answer without a single test, 252, but I can't see why 242 couldn't also be a true answer, assuming the yellow square has to be the largest value. Without a single test, say to determine whether the yellow sqaure is odd/even, how did you land on 252 not 242 please?

So if there were more Evens, Bl=P and Y Even, then verifier C (number of 3s) would be redundant.

[JohnnyCyclops]

To learn from the better players I looked at a game you played earlier today. https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=459919171

I see you went straight to the answer without a single test, 252, but I can't see why 242 couldn't also be a true answer, assuming the yellow square has to be the largest value. Without a single test, say to determine whether the yellow sqaure is odd/even, how did you land on 252 not 242 please?

So if there were more Evens, Bl=P and Y Even, then verifier C (number of 3s) would be redundant.

Thank you for replying. I'm sure it makes sense and I'm just not grasping it. Verifier C would still be used, but would return "no 3s" for the answer 252, but also "no 3s" if 242 was an answer. I could see using Verifier B (is Y odd/even) would allow you to confirm it was a 5 thus 252, but without testing that one I can't see any other clue in the verifiers that would say Y couldn't also be a 4.

[poptasticboy]

To learn from the better players I looked at a game you played earlier today. https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=459919171

I see you went straight to the answer without a single test, 252, but I can't see why 242 couldn't also be a true answer, assuming the yellow square has to be the largest value. Without a single test, say to determine whether the yellow sqaure is odd/even, how did you land on 252 not 242 please?

So if there were more Evens, Bl=P and Y Even, then verifier C (number of 3s) would be redundant.

Thank you for replying. I'm sure it makes sense and I'm just not grasping it. Verifier C would still be used, but would return "no 3s" for the answer 252, but also "no 3s" if 242 was an answer. I could see using Verifier B (is Y odd/even) would allow you to confirm it was a 5 thus 252, but without testing that one I can't see any other clue in the verifiers that would say Y couldn't also be a 4.

No verifier can be redundant in a valid puzzle.

If the answer to this puzzle were 242, you would have "More Evens", "Yellow Even" and "Blue=Purple" as true. However, in these circumstances all three colours would have to be Even. This would mean that the "Number of 3s" verifier would provide no additional information and so would be redundant.

This is not possible in a valid puzzle; every single verifier must be necessary to find the solution. So if a certain subset of verifier responses would mean that another verifier would provide no new information, that combination is impossible.

So the combination "More Evens", "Yellow Even" and "Blue=Purple" is not valid, as it would make "number of 3s" useless.

If you still can't see it, try it this way. Imagine that 242 was correct and the verifiers all have the correct answers for that solution. Now remove the "Number of 3s" verifier completely, but leave the other Verifiers giving the same answers.
Using just those 5 Verifiers, you would still reach the unique answer 242. The "number of 3s" verifier did not need to be used at all to reach the answer.

This tells you that that can not possibly be the correct solution.

[JohnnyCyclops]

So if there were more Evens, Bl=P and Y Even, then verifier C (number of 3s) would be redundant.

Thank you for replying. I'm sure it makes sense and I'm just not grasping it. Verifier C would still be used, but would return "no 3s" for the answer 252, but also "no 3s" if 242 was an answer. I could see using Verifier B (is Y odd/even) would allow you to confirm it was a 5 thus 252, but without testing that one I can't see any other clue in the verifiers that would say Y couldn't also be a 4.

No verifier can be redundant in a valid puzzle.

If the answer to this puzzle were 242, you would have "More Evens", "Yellow Even" and "Blue=Purple" as true. However, in these circumstances all three colours would have to be Even. This would mean that the "Number of 3s" verifier would provide no additional information and so would be redundant.

This is not possible in a valid puzzle; every single verifier must be necessary to find the solution. So if a certain subset of verifier responses would mean that another verifier would provide no new information, that combination is impossible.

So the combination "More Evens", "Yellow Even" and "Blue=Purple" is not valid, as it would make "number of 3s" useless.

If you still can't see it, try it this way. Imagine that 242 was correct and the verifiers all have the correct answers for that solution. Now remove the "Number of 3s" verifier completely, but leave the other Verifiers giving the same answers.
Using just those 5 Verifiers, you would still reach the unique answer 242. The "number of 3s" verifier did not need to be used at all to reach the answer.

This tells you that that can not possibly be the correct solution.

Thank you for the detailed reply. I understand it now. It's not been clear from my game play that Verifiers all have to be relevant. The final point you make, about removing the "number of 3s" verifier having no impact is instructional. I should probably go read the official rules to discover principles like this.

I had also wondered about the verifier of "more odds or more evens" allowing for a 3-0 or 0-3 result, not simply a majority of 2-1 or 1-2, but I tested that in a game and "more odds than evens" does allow for 3 odds and 0 evens, so that answered another question I had.

[Remycad]

I very rarely require more than 2 questions for a Classic/Standard/6 puzzle; most are solvable in 0-2 tests from pure deduction.

You gave us some good explanations on several puzzles on how you got to the solution in classic/standard/6 puzzles.
And I suppose that playing mainly turnbased arena games also helped you a lot to be able to get to these solutions...
So at that time I quick forgot about this topic

But now....
Settings are now classic/difficult/6....
Isn't it a bit unreal to be able to find the code in 2 questions on almost any given puzzle, in real time mode, and with an average puzzle time of 2 or 3 minutes ?
Cause it looks that's what it's gonna take to top the arena leaderboard

[poptasticboy]

I very rarely require more than 2 questions for a Classic/Standard/6 puzzle; most are solvable in 0-2 tests from pure deduction.

You gave us some good explanations on several puzzles on how you got to the solution in classic/standard/6 puzzles.
And I suppose that playing mainly turnbased arena games also helped you a lot to be able to get to these solutions...
So at that time I quick forgot about this topic

But now....
Settings are now classic/difficult/6....
Isn't it a bit unreal to be able to find the code in 2 questions on almost any given puzzle, in real time mode, and with an average puzzle time of 2 or 3 minutes ?
Cause it looks that's what it's gonna take to top the arena leaderboard

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly won't be paying any real-time games myself now that there are "proper" puzzles! Turn-based there are still puzzles that can be solved in few questions (even 0, though these are not as common as at Easy/Standard). No way I could do it in real-time though!

I'm enjoying the challenge of these hard puzzles, but they are certainly time-consuming to solve efficiently... definitely not for real-time!

[SRE Turner]

Settings are now classic/difficult/6....
Isn't it a bit unreal to be able to find the code in 2 questions on almost any given puzzle, in real time mode, and with an average puzzle time of 2 or 3 minutes ?
Cause it looks that's what it's gonna take to top the arena leaderboard

I agree. I understand how you can quickly narrow down the possibilities at the easier difficulty levels. But when someone does a hard problem with only two questions, I strongly suspect they are looking up the possible answers rather than figuring it out themselves. I'm not sure why they bother, but it certainly makes it not fun for me.