video game setting for this site

[kb83]

I am going to have a terrible completion rate this month. It kind of sneaked up on me. I was checking my success rate, and it seemed low, and then suddenly it was crazy low. I couldn't understand it, but then I visited the "recent games" for my user name, and the list was littered with untried puzzles, which, when I clicked on them, I did not recognize as having seen recently. Has this happened to anyone else? It certainly adds a new dimension to the game if you are trying to keep up your completion rate, i.e. know I have to visit the recent games. If I then try some of these, it helps my completion rate, but of course it does terrible things to my solve time, because these are puzzles I have not even started until 1 minute or more after they appear in my list. Is this a new feature or is it a bug?

[Deanna48]

Montyb, Pickleball and Skeeter have all complained about the same thing recently in the chat box. I'm guessing there's been a lot of multiple loads lately. So for many puzzles you see and solve, others loaded at the same time. That's one of the reasons I quit trying for 100 percent. I didn't want to sacrifice solve time for completion rate. As you said, going back to solve the extra loaded puzzles does terrible things to solve times.

[montyb]

I’ve noticed that I can get up to 6 “ghost loads” at a time. It doesn’t matter which device I use and sometimes I can play for 30 minutes or so without having any problems. I’ve taken to checking every third puzzle.

[oddcouple]

Yeah, me too. I can play for an hour or so and look back at my activity. Very rarely is it 100% puzzles I've played. Usually 2-5 in an hour. If they're recent, I'll go ahead and solve. But if we're talking one that's been sitting there for a long time, it's just not worth it for the minimum 10 points.

[LLapp]

I know nothing about video games, so I'll ask: What does this issue have to do with video game settings?

[kb83]

That was my stab at humor, Llapp. I don't play video games either, but that's how it felt when I saw these uninvited crypts appearing on my to-do list.

[AnastasiaOconnell]

Hey, I totally get the completion rate struggle! It's like a surprise challenge when those untried puzzles pop up out of nowhere. Feels like a game within a game. Maybe it's a new feature to keep us on our toes? Hang in there, buddy! Or try other games, like cash app games that pay real money. It's more handy anyway.

[kb83]

I find even if I don't "ask" for any puzzles at all, if I'm on the site, there may be one that loaded unbeknownst to me. So as soon as I get on the site, the first thing I do is check for recent puzzles. If this is happening to others, is it something that the administrator is aware of, and do they know what to do about it?

[admin]

Yep, I'm aware of the problem - there just isn't a great fix for it. The issue is that browsers will occasionally half-load or double-load a page, maybe because of low memory, a glitch in the data packet, or any of a dozen other potential issues. On the player's end it looks like only one page was loaded, on the server end it can look like 2, 3, 4, 5 or more page loads. Once our server sees and fills a request for the game page, we have to save that as a "started puzzle" and we have no way of knowing whether or not that individual page load actually fully loaded on your browser.

This issue goes back to the earliest days of the site (2007) and eventually we had to get rid of the completion rate challenge because of it, there's just no good way for us to prevent or diagnose these phantom puzzle loads (and I've tried many, many different ways to fix it). It is doubly-hard to diagnose because there's no great way to replicate the bug - it happens completely randomly. (BTW If anyone ever finds a way to 100% replicate this issue on command, please let me know!)

Sorry I don't have better news! I may be able to add some sort of visual alert, however, when you have more than one "open" puzzle. Not sure if that's a big help, though.

[318WOZ]

Stephen, a visual indicator of existing open puzzles would be a great idea. I'd recommend putting it on the page that loads after we solve--the Congratulations page with comments. Having it up during a current solve would be a distraction that we couldn't do anything about anyway, but it would be helpful to see the notification after we've just solved a puzzle. Maybe it would be good right before or after the "Congratulations". What would be even better is if it were a button or link that sent us directly to the open puzzle like the "Retry" link does from the Recent Games page. If several were open, it wouldn't really matter which one we were sent to, because the effect would repeat until none were left.

As another recommendation, it would be nice to have the Hint button removed. As dumb as it sounds, sometimes when I intend to click "Reset" I hit the "Hint me!" button instead, only to have it slow me down by letting me know that the button has no use in competitive mode. If it can't be used, it ideally shouldn't be displayed on the page.

Thanks again for the site. It's cool to have built something that people care so much about.

[oddcouple]

I like the idea of an automatic notification of unsolved puzzles. At least that way we can decided whether to solve immediately or just let them go.

[kb83]

Very helpful, thanks, and good to know I'm not hallucinating. This month, I've decided just to attempt to get my solve rate above 90% by monitoring my list and doing cleanup periodically. As a result, my average solve time, usually about 28 seconds, will be about 200 seconds instead!

[LLapp]

That sounds frustrating! It could be a glitch or maybe a new feature causing those untried puzzles to pop up suddenly. It's tricky when it messes with your completion rate and solve time. Have you tried reaching out to the game's support to see if others are facing this?

TamiaAcevedo, see Admin's explanation of the problem in his post #9, above.

[icxue]

Is there any tips to solve cryptograms without patterns in the text?

[kb83]

This comes up alot, ixcue, if you're trying to solve every puzzle. Some crypts are relatively pattern-free, letter wise. Sometimes I just look at the word length pattern. For example, "2, 3, 4, 2 ..." might be "If you want to" . Sometimes, after a comma, I try "not" or "but" if it is a 3 letter word. If it is a listed author, I will resort to googling the author's quotes. Sometimes, the quote in question is not among the ones that come up, and yet, somehow, this still helps. But this does not help for quotes by "unattributed"! Sometimes guessing works (repeated guessing, not just sticking with your first guess.) It has been very liberating not trying to keep up my solve speed, but I'll probably go back to my old ways next month, and not worry about completion rate.