Ever-changing goals

[crazykate]

I know we all play with different individual goals, and sometimes these goals develop or change over time.
I often start the first few games in a new month without a specific goal in mind, and then I think of a goal I want to achieve. Last month, I just wanted to get in the top 10 for average points per word (in 5x5), and then near the end of the month I noticed my all-time points average slipping, so I adjusted my goal this month to raise my all-time points average to above 120.5 while maintaining an APPW score of above 20.

Do you sometimes adjust your goals? How have your goals changed over time?
I'm curious about other playing styles.
I'm also going to be using this thread as an accountability thread if I think of a new goal for myself.

[leabhar]

I used playto the goal of finding a nine letter word. Also the last word on a board. Time passing and seeing 20+ words appear, the joy of playing (for a goal) has completely gone. I just play when I have nothing else to do and don’t expect anything from it. To me the game has little fun left.

[John13verse34]

I do change my goals periodically... usually at the start of a month or a year. I'll vary between focusing on 4x4 or 5x5, and although I've pretty much always focused on best/longest words rather than most words or highest total score, some months I try to get a high average word score, and some months i don't worry about that. That's usually the biggest change for me.

And now and then my main goal is to find obscure words no one else has found or words that are new to me.

Changing up my focus helps keep things fun after playing for 13 years and more than 37,000 games! :-D Honestly, though, as long as there are words to fine, I'm always going to enjoy it :-)

[tawantinsuyo]

I've been thinking for a while that a stat I'd like to see is "percentage of total words". It's easy enough to work that out for individual games (e.g. I played 110 words on a 440 word board, that's 25%), but it doesn't appear as a trackable, cumulative monthly or lifetime statistic.
Even though I'm a long way from being in the top tier, over time I've got pickier about the boards I play because I want to keep above a certain number of "average words per game", say. But that means I skip boards that have relatively few words. Having "percentage of total words" might be an incentive (to me at least) to play those boards. And in slowing down to look for words on such boards, I reckon I'm more likely to attempt and learn new words too.

[BoredInTheCar]

I have different goals in different months. A typical goal is to be in the top 10 for average score per game in 5x5. But that's a demanding goal, as it requires I flip through lots of boards to find ones with good enough stats that I have some hope of scoring high enough on them. I also end up quitting before the end of a lot of games, if I can see that my score is not going to be very good.

Other months, my goal is just to have fun and not worry about scores or placements. In that case I usually play as Arabesque, so as not to lower the lifetime stats I've managed as BoredInTheCar.

A third goal I strive for occasionally - one that lowers lifetime scores a lot - is to play boards that have very few total words, just to see how well I can do. I only do that as Arabesque.

[folkslinger]

Because both crazykate and leabhar had posted on this thread (so they might read this) I wanted to relate to both of them my admiration for how well they play this game.
There are probably more than just the two of them who play wordtwist in what is not their first language but you are the two that have said some about that in these forums.

First to leabhar: I'm sorry the game is less of a pleasure for you than it was. When I run across games you have played I am blown away by your skills in a 2nd (or more?) language.
You regularly have found great words and I feel, should be proud of your achievements.

To crazykate: More than once this month I have failed to find long and/or high scoring words of quite significant value and length only to find that you had already found them.
I am a great admirer of your linguistic skill and your ability to divine English words from Latin roots (as expressed in one of your previous posts). I too had a fair amount of Latin(and
Aced it all) but your apparent memory of it and detective skills often leave me in the dust!

[leabhar]

Thank you very much Folksinger, that was much appreciated. I have been thinking about this thread and came up with a target: play every board that comes up, to try and find one (or more) words that no one else found.

[crazykate]

Thank you, folkslinger, for your kind words!
leabhar, I personally find that periodically pursuing different goals helps me to keep enjoying the game. I hope your new goal feels more fun than the previous one!

[Naboka]

I know we all play with different individual goals, and sometimes these goals develop or change over time.
I often start the first few games in a new month without a specific goal in mind, and then I think of a goal I want to achieve. Last month, I just wanted to get in the top 10 for average points per word (in 5x5), and then near the end of the month I noticed my all-time points average slipping, so I adjusted my goal this month to raise my all-time points average to above 120.5 while maintaining an APPW score of above 20.

Do you sometimes adjust your goals? How have your goals changed over time?
I'm curious about other playing styles.
I'm also going to be using this thread as an accountability thread if I think of a new goal for myself.

Your question has been percolating on the mind's back burners.

I tend to adjust my goals for nearly every game. Subtle shifts.

Several years ago I got bored with finding the same old words over and over again on Wordtwist. So my larger goal became avoiding the ordinary and finding the extraordinary.

What new words could be found? Not just by me, but by others. Sometimes I just laugh when I find some of the words some of you guys manage to piece together.

Being able to add green words became a consistent goal. At first, when I had less experience, I depended on the boards of better players to find words. Then I realized there was more to be found. More than they knew. So I started poring through dictionaries looking for new stuff.

How to contribute. How to benefit others. Not just myself.

An ethical question that's been a cornerstone of my life is the question: what are you contributing? You can just look around you and note who's contributing and who isn't to solve so many of life's problems. Some people just want to take, take, take. They contribute nothing. They can suck you dry. And they tend to be pretty miserable individuals. They never ask what they can do to help others. It's always "how do I benefit?"

One of the curiosities of working with kindergarteners is how do you get them to become dependent on their own abilities rather than someone else? Even with bright kids initially, you ask them to spell some word and encourage them to use their own knowledge to parse out the letters from the sounds in the word. Most will look at you, expecting... expecting you to
walk them through it.

At least at first.

Then they get it and start taking pride in using their own abilities.

And then you get them to contribute new ideas. To use their abilities and insights to add their own ideas to what's being taught.

Yes. Kindergarten.

As much as I wanted to improve my scores; high scores have became less and less important. No one in the outside world cares. And the thrill is temporary. Just a momentary high, that's almost immediately gone. And then you're stuck trying to get a better score. Records here don't mean much.If you get a new personal best score, you're then having to get a higher score to get that high again. It's an endless hamster wheel.

I'm most impressed with people who contribute something. Someone who's found an interesting word. Someone who shares an experience.

Contributing always seems to be a worthwhile goal.

Having high scores doesn't mean much at all.

Being the best? Scoring the most points? Racking up trophies?

Nope.

Doesn't mean much at all.

In the larger view.

It's what you contribute.

And not what you can take.

[boysmom]

My goals change on a month-to-month basis. I will generally spend a month learning new words or words pairs and write them in the Notes app on my phone. some of the news ones I’m working on incorporating:

• rusine and ursine
• Merle and Merel
• Align and Algin
• Dhol and dhole

Occasionally I try and spend a month (this current month specifically) working on speed and swipe accuracy.

[DrPlacebo]

I don't have a single goal, but I try to balance a few unrelated ones in every game:

* Individual board records -- I skip a board if it's clear the longest word has already been found (e.g. there's only one 9+ letter word and someone's already found it), unless the record is 20+ letters in which case I'll play to find that long word.
* Maximize average score while averaging at least 5.5 points per word each month. I don't deliberately skip low-scoring words, but at the same time I look more for higher-scoring words. The average points goal ties in a little to individual board records: I especially enjoy breaking the total points record for a board without breaking the word count record, though again I do not try to avoid breaking the word count record.
* Find new and interesting words -- this doesn't get any actual points, but I like being the first to find a word on a board in general, and this includes short ones. And I enjoy finding words with interesting allusions or associations, e.g. my all-time favorite word I've found is probably still PROCRUSTEAN.

[crazykate]

I started this month going for longest word records, when I unexpectedly found myself on top of the APPW leaderboard. I looked at my stats and they were something like a 31.6 points average and a 1.9 word average, so I tried to get my points average to above 32 and my word average above 2 words per game. It's getting increasingly frustrating, though. Discarding a perfectly lovely word because it would lower my average by too much is not my favourite thing to do. I'll continue with this goal until the end of the month, but then I'll think of a new one.

[dannyb]

I set a personal record of six consecutive typos and I look at the keyboard as I type! Four words, six typos (two of the words I typed wrong twice!)

[jbud1980]

My goal is to have fun playing, and so far I've accomplished it. Have fun playing, everyone.

[need4speed]

I set a personal record of six consecutive typos and I look at the keyboard as I type! Four words, six typos (two of the words I typed wrong twice!)

I've managed to spell "typo" incorrectly on many occasions. Usually it becomes "tpyo". I have stumbled upon some new-to-me words when I make a mistake. My favourite so far is mistyping "ration" as "raion" which is a valid word that comes up surprisingly often.