MORE New Features Request

[dpm39560]

I just posted a suggestion on the Duplicated Letter New Feature Input Needed thread, but please allow me to repeat it here with some other New Feature requests/suggestions. I have been trying to find if these features have already been suggested, but am unable to locate a SEARCH function on the forum. I know, it's probably right in front of my face and I just can't see it. Oh, well.

Here are the suggestions, starting with the repeated one:

1. A USERS PLAY OPTION feature. This would allow each registered user to elect which of the features they want on or off, or select among options. Such as #2 next.

2. DUPLICATE LETTER NOTIFICATION: This is addressed in another thread, so let me suggest here that the USER ought to be able to elect on their OPTIONS panel whether to have the earlier versions of duplicated letters automatically removed, or have the letters highlighted in a different color if they're duplicated, or to simply leave things as they are, without any notification.

3. HAVE A DIFFERENT SCORING SYSTEM BASED ON HINTS USED Those using no hints score highest, with the score multiplier decreasing for each hint used.

4. GIVE US A PAUSE BUTTON Sometimes, the phone rings in the middle of a puzzle. Giving us a pause button would allow us to complete the puzzle later. If someone is in competition scoring, then using the pause button would eliminate that puzzle from their stats.

5. GIVE US AN ON-SCREEN TIMER: We should be able to display or not display this, selectable on our OPTIONS panel.

6. HOW ABOUT AN "I GIVE UP" BUTTON? Sometimes, we just can't solve a puzzle. Let us click the "I Give Up" button and see the solution, and for those in competition mode, just give them the lowest score possible.

7. CHANGE COLOR OF ON-SCREEN TIMER (#5) BASED ON TIME: The numbers can be various colors of green to blue based on above-below average time for that puzzle.

8. CHANGE THE "NO MORE HINTS" NOTIFICATION FROM MODAL: Currently, you use a (javascript) popup to notify "No More Hints (etc)" when the user clicks the HINT ME button one too many times. This requires the user to click on the OK button to make the popup go away, which adds to the solve time. A better way to do this would be to simply DISABLE the HINT ME button when there are no more hints available. Alternatively, you could use javascript to cause the "No More Hints (etc.)" message to appear on the main screen, thereby eliminating the time-eating need to click OK.

I hope these suggestions find fertile ground; I believe they will make this app a much better experience for all.

dpm39560 in MS

[pootie49]

???

Ok the pause button just jumped out at me.
uhuh...yes lets have a pause button, take the time to google the quote,
then type it really fast. And as for eliminating it from our stats...
well...whenever we hit one we just dont like, pause, pause oh hey an easy one, pause ...

Seriously, I am so of the "if it aint broke dont fix it" school of thought.

Admin was addressing a common complaint, mostly I imagine from new users.
Lets just change the whole darned thing shall we.
Take all the challenge out of it.

Hints?
I think thats why admin introduced the compete/no compete option.

The "I give up option."
errrr??? then give up. or ohh i dunno, solve the puzzle?!
Thats sort what most us of do here.
Some of us just solve what we can, at the fastest we can; others just solve.
If we want to know what the puzzle says, well we solve it. Or we wait, it will come
around again eventually.
For beginning solvers when I first started, we werent so focused on time, we
worked a puzzle, until we figured it out. Thats the fun of this.
Sure we google, its no secret, we use helper programs, again no secret,
but for those of us who prefer to go for 100 percent and others as well...we just work it out.
And many puzzles arent easily solved with help programs or Google so we
use that thing inside our heads that made us decide to play this wonderful game
in the first place. Our brains. Fantastic computers that they are.

I do understand that the site is trying to attract new players and making it more "user friendly" is
a fabu idea, but please Admin, dont make it EASY. The joy of this game is the challenge it provides.
At least for me.

I do apologize for the tone of this, sort of got alot on my mind and all, but lets get a titch real here.

[admin2]

A pause button will unfortunately never work for competitive mode, as it will be abused by those wanting to score fantastically short solve times. It may be possible to someday add it to non-competitive play, however.

An on-screen timer is a good idea and something we have on the to do list. However, it will need to be a user option as I'm sure a constantly ticking time-clock will probably annoy some people.

Hints will never be allowed in competitive play, as it would over-complicate the scoring system and probably completely invalidate the success rate competitions, but we are considering extending unlimited hints (instead of just vowels, like we do now) for non-competitive play.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Stephen

[fishbum]

Pootie responds: "The "I give up option."
errrr??? then give up. or ohh i dunno, solve the puzzle?!
Thats sort what most us of do here.
Some of us just solve what we can, at the fastest we can; others just solve.
If we want to know what the puzzle says, well we solve it. Or we wait, it will come
around again eventually."

Well, not being as talented as Pootie, sometimes I cannot solve the puzzle. And after the frustration I would like to know the answer. Also I don't see how waiting for the puzzle to eventually come around again would make me smart enough to solve then.

[admin2]

This is one of the most requested features on the site - being able to get the solution if you "Give up" on a puzzle. I've resisted it because of the competitive nature of cryptograms.org, and my worry that folks will abuse the system and write a fairly simple script to just "scrape" all of our puzzle answers into a database and ruin the fun for everyone.

The only good solution to this problem I've come up with so far is to allow only a small number of "Give up" answers to each user per month - say 5 or 10. But even then, we will undoubtedly have people who just try to auto-register thousands of accounts in order to get at the data, and we're back at square one.

[pootie49]

Hi

I want to apologize for the tone of that original post. It wasnt intended to disparage any
member on site. I was having a rough day.

However, Fishbum, every quote is solvable. It might take hours but they are solvable.
At the start, a lot of us would spend very long amounts of time in working out a solution.
Re "it will come around again", next time it does, you will have more solving experience, and it wont be as hard. Its just how it works, or how it worked for me anyway.

Just comes with practice and time.