Achievements and Accomplishments Thread

[John13verse34]

I scored above 800 the other day for the first time, with a score of 807. It wasn't the high score for the board, but I was still pretty happy.

Well done! :-D

[bionicflutist]

I scored above 800 the other day for the first time, with a score of 807. It wasn't the high score for the board, but I was still pretty happy.

[Naboka]

You posted your question while I was typing my previous one. Haha
I'm not really sure if I've done that before. I never took screenshots of records set in 4x4. I remember I did well on the PHOTOSENSITIZERS string of words but don't recall their pt values. Surprisingly, the brain retool to play 4x4 long words I wrote about isn't applicable now.

Well, I'm glad you're playing 4x4. You were the only play on that board.

If I hadn't seen that you had a 16/33 I wouldn't have been hyperalert to finding it. Caught it just as it sailed over the fence.

The downside: that search slowed finding other words,

but sometimes the sacrifice/reward makes it worth it.

It'll still be back in circulation in a few days, so you can add to your record collection.

ps: sure wish I had my record collection from the 60's and 70's. But, who would have thunk.

[lalatan]

lalatan,

124 points with 4 words in 4x4!

You posted your question while I was typing my previous one. Haha
I'm not really sure if I've done that before. I never took screenshots of records set in 4x4. I remember I did well on the PHOTOSENSITIZERS string of words but don't recall their pt values. Surprisingly, the brain retool to play 4x4 long words I wrote about isn't applicable now.

[lalatan]

I think the difference on the 4x4 side has been more noticeable. I've been finding a much higher percentage of boards with words of 14, 15, or 16 letters than I'm used to seeing.

I tried out 4x4 and you are correct! I collected 70 best/longest word records since yesterday afternoon, solving some new words in under 10 secs. I guess 4x4 now has long words I'm used to seeing in 5x5. Having a blast. Thanks for the intel.

[Naboka]

lalatan,

124 points with 4 words in 4x4!

Wow!

You ever gotten more?

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[lalatan]

That's interesting. Are you finding that on the 4x4 boards also?

I haven't played 4x4 for over a year. For a while I thought I might collect more best/longest word records because of the shorter game time. But, as I wrote in the past, I need to retool my brain to the shorter time and smaller board. Then I thought, "What's the point of doing that when my avg solve time in 5x5 was 56 seconds/game? I should just play 5x5." I see John has answered your question so that's good he's seeing more long words. Maybe I'll try it for a few games.

[John13verse34]

That's interesting. Are you finding that on the 4x4 boards also?

I think the difference on the 4x4 side has been more noticeable. I've been finding a much higher percentage of boards with words of 14, 15, or 16 letters than I'm used to seeing.

[Naboka]

In order to get a good feel on the new boards with umpteen ultra-rare words available I waited to weigh in on the topic. My experience is there are so many promising pieces of words that it's more difficult to find one with enough pts to warrant keeping the record. The majority of time the best word available is worth <24 pts. My opinion is confirmed by the plethora of game stats where the best word is <=24 pts with an ultra-rare word count of over 50 9+ letters. I have played many of those games to see if the record holder missed the best word but almost always they found the best one available. So, although the new boards are a boon to speed players intent on achieving new personal bests, for me they sap my desire to find long words because there are so many boards that come up with nothing significant. I've found many new long words, which make it more interesting, but don't want to spend so much time clicking through so many games.

John13verse34, congrats on reaching 10k long word records!

That's interesting. Are you finding that on the 4x4 boards also?

Since the longest/best word isn't my balliwick, the influx of so many 6-12 letter words that weren't included has been a bit exciting.

But, in practical terms, they're not producing higher total points: 100 7-point-words produces the same result regardless of which ones are used. 100x7 will always result in 700, regardless whether it's 700 apples or 700 dust motes.

To avoid inflammation, I purposely try to keep the word totals under 110. Just an easy pace. So, it's common to leave known but unplayed valuable words. Doesn't matter if the unplayed words total 2 or 20, they're still unplayed, worth zero.

My scores are a bit lower on average because the new words act as individual units rather than part of a larger automatic feed. Slows things down until the new ones act as part of automatic groupings. Difference between firing automatic vs semi-automatic weapons.

Stephen did note when introducing the new games and new words, they aren't going to change much for most players.

As long as someone is benefitting, it's probably a good thing. It would be interesting to see a benefit distribution graph. It'd probably be basically flat until around the 95th percentile, then begin an accelerating increase.

Like most economies, the upper couple of percent benefit the most. It's just that this is an economy of words rather than dollars.

[lalatan]

Hope you're enjoying all the new words. Certainly is a lot less frustrating now trying to type in some long, esoteric word and getting nothing.

In order to get a good feel on the new boards with umpteen ultra-rare words available I waited to weigh in on the topic. My experience is there are so many promising pieces of words that it's more difficult to find one with enough pts to warrant keeping the record. The majority of time the best word available is worth <24 pts. My opinion is confirmed by the plethora of game stats where the best word is <=24 pts with an ultra-rare word count of over 50 9+ letters. I have played many of those games to see if the record holder missed the best word but almost always they found the best one available. So, although the new boards are a boon to speed players intent on achieving new personal bests, for me they sap my desire to find long words because there are so many boards that come up with nothing significant. I've found many new long words, which make it more interesting, but don't want to spend so much time clicking through so many games.

John13verse34, congrats on reaching 10k long word records!

[John13verse34]

Congrats on the ten grand. That's a lot of work.

Thanks! :-D

Seeing your name or lalatan's usually means the best and longest words are out of reach. But studying the letter placements and word elements involved, and imagining how you guys recognized them makes finding such words in the future easier.

I've learned a lot from lalatan's boards. i also like to scan the best and longest word award lists at the end of each month to get ideas for words and patterns :-)

Hope you're enjoying all the new words. Certainly is a lot less frustrating now trying to type in some long, esoteric word and getting nothing.

It's been very enjoyable!

ps: just found a game where you got a 16/33. A good example of how the letters weave across the board. But, it took over a minute to work it out, so had to dump the board. Certainly wouldn't have found it if you hadn't demonstrated a 16/33 was sitting there.

I've always hoped that my long words help give other players something fun to shoot for :-)

[Naboka]

my sympathy to you both! i have pretty bad repetitive strain damage in my fingers and hands from many years of lots of keyboarding (and not always being great about my ergonomics). that makes it difficult to play WordTwist for speed, so i focus on finding long and best words.

i just hit a personal milestone this week... 10,000 longest-word records on 4x4 :-)

10000.png

Congrats on the ten grand. That's a lot of work.

Sympathize with you also.

Seeing your name or lalatan's usually means the best and longest words are out of reach. But studying the letter placements and word elements involved, and imagining how you guys recognized them makes finding such words in the future easier.

Hope you're enjoying all the new words. Certainly is a lot less frustrating now trying to type in some long, esoteric word and getting nothing.

ps: just found a game where you got a 16/33. A good example of how the letters weave across the board. But, it took over a minute to work it out, so had to dump the board. Certainly wouldn't have found it if you hadn't demonstrated a 16/33 was sitting there.

Screen Shot 2022-12-17 at 5.38.10 AM.png

[John13verse34]

Sympathy for you.

Been experiencing the same thing with the fingers.

my sympathy to you both! i have pretty bad repetitive strain damage in my fingers and hands from many years of lots of keyboarding (and not always being great about my ergonomics). that makes it difficult to play WordTwist for speed, so i focus on finding long and best words.

i just hit a personal milestone this week... 10,000 longest-word records on 4x4 :-)

10000.png

[Naboka]

Just set a new all-time high of 781 points (old record was 756). When I set the record before, I needed 136 words. This time, I needed 112. That's a good thing, because I thought I was really flying. But I made a bunch of typos. If I could get those straightened out, perhaps I could get 800 before my fingers stop working. My 76th birthday was on the 13th, and on the 14th I was playing WordTwist and two of my knuckles started hurting a whole lot. I hope that doesn't become a regular thing.

Sympathy for you.

Been experiencing the same thing with the fingers.

Playing 2 minutes is hard enough. 3 minutes? Ain't happening.

Mostly, I've settled into playing 30 seconds or less, just for the brain exercise. If things are going well, the game gets finished. If not, the fingers are happy.

ps: And then you get to the top of the mountain, look out, and realize the view was worth the pain.

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[bwt1213]

Just set a new all-time high of 781 points (old record was 756). When I set the record before, I needed 136 words. This time, I needed 112. That's a good thing, because I thought I was really flying. But I made a bunch of typos. If I could get those straightened out, perhaps I could get 800 before my fingers stop working. My 76th birthday was on the 13th, and on the 14th I was playing WordTwist and two of my knuckles started hurting a whole lot. I hope that doesn't become a regular thing.