Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Proposal: Guessing Game 2.0

Timed out 2 votes to 2. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 28 Apr 2024 13:00:36 UTC

In the rule “Guesses” replace the text “Make a story post to the blog clearly declaring the name of the Targeted Seeker, and what the guesser thinks one of their Private Criteria are” with this text:

Make a story post to the blog containing each the following items: the name of the Targeted Seeker, text that uniquely identifies a single existing Authentic Shot posted within the last 48 hours where the Targeted Seeker has not yet responded to that post and the guesser is not the author of that post, and a number between 1 and 4 inclusive that the guesser thinks is the number of Private Criteria that the named Authentic Shot will satisfy for the Targeted Seeker.

In the same rule, replace the steps for the atomic action Resolving the Guess with the following steps:

* If the number mentioned in the guess is the same as the number of Private Criteria that is satisfied for the Targeted Seeker for that Authentic Shot, respond to the post with a for, reduce their own Score by the Exposure of each of the Private Criteria that is satisfied by that Authentic Shot, and increase the score of the Guesser by the same amount, and then remove each of that Private Criteria from the Target’s private criteria list (resetting its satisfying and unsatisfying counts to zero in the process)
* If the guess is not the same as the number of Private Criteria that is satisfied for the Targeted Seeker for that Authentic Shot, respond to the post with a against

Hopefully this will address the comments from the previous iteration of the Guessing Game proposal. Please do look for holes in this. Suggestions are welcome to word this more concisely if possible. That’s one thing I often struggle with.

Comments

Kevan: he/him

24-04-2024 15:08:54 UTC

For concision I’d consider dropping all the hash stuff and keeping it closer to the existing guess system where it’s just said out loud and the targeted player has to respond to it. So I can make a Guess post saying that “I think that Snap 042, which Jonathan hasn’t yet responded to, matches 3 of his current Criteria”, and you’d give it a thumbs up or down.

Would also be a good idea to limit it to guesses on a third party’s photos. Otherwise a player could deliberately recreate a recent photo as best they can, and make a Guess based on the target’s previous matches for it, which would very probably pay out.

JonathanDark: he/him

24-04-2024 15:27:02 UTC

I like it. I completely changed the proposal to simply alter the existing Guess rules to call out a guess of the number of criteria that will be satisfied, and score along the same lines if the guess is correct.

JonathanDark: he/him

24-04-2024 15:32:23 UTC

I found some holes that I had to patch up, so if you read the revised proposal, it’s worth a re-read at this point.

4st:

24-04-2024 18:53:29 UTC

for

Josh: he/they

24-04-2024 19:45:32 UTC

against I think this makes guessing a lot easier and thus quite a bit more trivial.

JonathanDark: he/him

24-04-2024 20:19:16 UTC

On the other hand, it does have the potential to make Private Criteria more dynamic if Seekers can force churn on other Seekers more often. It becomes a more strategic tool than just getting an award for a Guess.

Right now, as hard as Guesses are, after the first successful Guess, it’s not worth the effort to try for more.

Kevan: he/him

24-04-2024 20:49:56 UTC

for It’s still one guess a week.

Nad: he/him

24-04-2024 21:50:08 UTC

Is the scoring a little to narrow.  Seems like over the last 6 or 7 snaps, the occurrences are 0:0, 1:3, 2:10, 3:3, 4:1, 5:0

Seems like 2 criteria would be an optimal guess.  This may change based on this proposal but I don’t think much.

JonathanDark: he/him

24-04-2024 21:59:00 UTC

I suspect that after being hit with a few correct Guesses and getting their criteria reset, some Seekers will in fact vary their criteria a bit more to prevent the optimal guess being 2.

There’s also variability in the Exposure value at the time of the Guess, and while the Guesser can try to maximize Exposure by holding off on a Guess for as long as possible, they do so at the risk of missing the opportunity for a correct Guess before the Target changes their criteria.

Nad: he/him

24-04-2024 22:05:00 UTC

Like Kevan said, It’s only just one guess a week.  With really only three active players that might guess, that’s like one reset a week.  Not much to modify behavior, IMO.

Guessing a number every week seems not engaging but I’m still pondering this one.

JonathanDark: he/him

24-04-2024 22:46:08 UTC

We could certainly change the cadence in another Proposal. If we pair that with raising the number of correct Guesses required to win an award, that would address Josh’s issue with Guesses being too easy.

I think overall what I’m struggling with is the contention between Guesses that are too hard and Guesses that are too easy. Trying to narrow Private Criteria to make Guesses easier seems like the wrong way to go, but I acknowledge that changing what is being guessed also has its problems.

Where I land on this is that making Guesses easier makes it a more engaging mechanic, even if it is easier, so the counter is to raise the bar for how successful Guesses count towards victory. Raising the bar for earning an award for Guesses and lowering the Score gain for them would both be acceptable to me.

Nad: he/him

25-04-2024 12:12:41 UTC

I’m wondering if there someway to salvage our original guessing game.  Maybe some rule where the guess must match a portion of the Private Criteria and would also satisfy the critieras scoring.

Kevan: he/him

25-04-2024 13:50:02 UTC

against CoV while Conjunction Junction is pending.

JonathanDark: he/him

25-04-2024 13:55:29 UTC

Maybe. The problem is that language is varied enough to allow either escaping guesses with the right wording, or making guesses too easy with overbroad guessing powers.

Take the example of allowing guesses for a “noun-adjective” pairing. You could guess “blue car” but if I had “contains a navy blue car”, would that be the same? I could argue that they aren’t equivalent because a light blue car wouldn’t satisfy it.

That’s why I thought that inverting the guess made more sense: guess the criteria match on a Shot, rather than trying to guess the criteria itself. It allows room for the vagaries of language while guessing the kinds of Shots the Seeker wants to match.

Nad: he/him

25-04-2024 14:18:30 UTC

Yes, with that argument guessing criteria seems completely flawed.

The problem I have with the reverse is that is she divorced from the original concept. For instance, just guessing numbers is a solid approach, I’d argue with a look at the current S/U score, an educated guess maybe better than a 1/3 or higher probability of hitting.

That just seems wrong to me.

JonathanDark: he/him

25-04-2024 14:24:58 UTC

Maybe it’s an argument for repealing Guessing, then? Seems a shame, but it also seems hard to resolve satisfactorily.

JonathanDark: he/him

25-04-2024 14:33:40 UTC

@NadNavillus: would you go for the idea of guessing the specific Private Criteria that will be matched? So rather than guessing “3”, you guess “1st, 4th, and 5th Private Criteria”? That would be more challenging, and perhaps closer to the idea of guessing at the contents of a Seeker’s Private Criteria without having to be word-specific.

Nad: he/him

25-04-2024 14:38:49 UTC

Yes, on first pass, I think so.

Nad: he/him

25-04-2024 14:39:08 UTC

Not that I’m against this yet, just on the fence.

JonathanDark: he/him

25-04-2024 18:53:18 UTC

My goal is to make a revision of Guessing palatable enough such that your “Conjunction Junction” proposal is no longer necessary for the purpose of fixing Guessing. I’m trying to determine what will get you there.