Next puzzle suggestion

Feedback Feature Suggestions
1

Hi!

Would it be possible to upgrade the random puzzle selector that appears after solving a puzzle (player puzzles)? As far as I can tell, at the moment, the RNG picks one from a small selection of the player’s oldest unsolved puzzles (5 maybe). I imagine it either goes by post date, or puzzle ID.

I would like to see this feature extended a little. Personally, the puzzles I would like to see appear here are the 1) smallest, or 2) most solved. However, I must admit that I would be reluctant to let go of the current selection, so what I would suggest is actually another layer of RNG, something like this for player puzzles:

25% chance to pick from the currently implemented selection (oldest puzzles)
25% chance to pick from the shortest puzzles
25% chance to pick from the puzzles with the most solvers
25% chance to pick from the same puzzle creator as the last puzzle solved (oldest would do nicely here too but newest may be even more interesting)

A small selection of each would suffice, just like the current system, just more themes to make a selection from. You might even let the player specify which ones they would like to see, although that requires a change to the settings GUI.

Thank you for your consideration! :wink:

3 Likes
2

drake: great to hear from you! we are working on a major change to how players (at both early and advanced stages) are given ‘short-term’ missions in eterna, to be tested later in 2015. your idea makes a lot of sense. i’m bringing this up with the dev team.

3

Drake, I really like the idea too. I get the same 4-5 puzzles suggested, that I don’t feel like solving.

I would love if the puzzle suggestor could be made to follow the sorting, so eg. if I feel like doing all drake puzzles one day, then as long as I have the search field set for drake, the next puzzle generator would follow that road.

Similar if I feel like solving all switches, and then search them out by the search field, then switch puzzles are what I get suggested and get sent on to.

5

That is taking it a step further, another great idea! I must admit though, if I had to choose between the two, I would still prefer the first (random from a few themes). I have two reasons for this.

First, going by the search decreases the amount of variation, which in my opinion is part of the reason to use a random generator in the first place. With this idea, we could do away with the random generator completely and just offer the next puzzle from the search screen. If we’re aiming to just keep clicking on the suggestion we would never notice that there is no randomness in it anyway.

Second, when I do a search and then open a puzzle, I already do it in a new tab. I find it more efficient that way. This greatly reduces the value of a search-based puzzle suggestion for me. True, I can switch from opening in new tabs to just clicking the suggestions, but that is just replacing one feature with another. It is simpler to do, but effectively removes a feature.

That being said, I would love to know if this idea can also be implemented. If so, I think our two ideas would complement each other extremely well. That is, a single tickbox on the options screen to choose between the two would most likely be able to satisfy every player.

1 Like
7

I very much like your ideas, Drake.

Random puzzle generator, when pushing next button would be also be my first wish. Then the second thingy with next puzzle from search criteria, would just be some extra sweets.

I wish for the next button to keep having some degree of sensor for what puzzles get suggested. Like it has today. So newbie players don’t get suggested totally hard switch or player puzzles (like yours :wink: ), because I remember when the next generator send new players into switch puzzles before they had 10000 points. That caused a lot of frustrated players and lost many a player for Eterna.

8

Alternative, offer 4 puzzles to continue with in the selector.
1 by posting age of puzzle
1 by longest unsolved,
1 by newest puzzle added to the library (or task list)
1 totally random
and ensure none of these can be the same

10

Offering multiple puzzles at the same time is a great idea, and goes well with themed suggestions. If it’s not too resource-intensive, I’d love to see that added into the mix!

Unfortunately the rest of your ideas are not that great. Offering only one puzzle from each theme is a downgrade of the current system. The first theme, the oldest puzzle, is the same as the current implementation sans the random generator. It will be the same puzzle all the time until the player solves it. The reason I left this theme in my selection is because it provides a great way to learn “in the footsteps of those who came before”.

The newest puzzle is the opposite of this. The reason I wouldn’t want to suggest this is twofold. On one hand, you can reach this puzzle with a single click of a mouse anyway. On the other hand, there’s no telling whether a player will be able to solve it just by looking at the shape. Sure, there are some exceptions, but they are a minority.

Which brings me to the longest unsolved, which suffers from the same problem. Now, I’ll put aside my prejudice against e-peen contests for a minute and try to be objective about this. The sad truth is that only a handful of people can solve these puzzles. There’s a few more who like to try, but that’s about it. For everybody else, clicking the puzzle will only yield frustration.

This problem is also prevalent in the last theme, completely random, and this has already been commented on by Eli a few posts above. In general, I would like to see puzzles suggested to the players that they can actually solve, rather than puzzles that you, me, the developers, or anybody else wants them to solve. Sure, there’s probably room for that too, but not to this extent.

Another problem with the longest unsolved would be clarification. Is the longest unsolved puzzle the one that is the oldest puzzle with 0 solvers (you can search for these anyway), or is it the puzzle that no player has solved for the longest time? If it is the latter, then right now, it would be a puzzle that has been solved by at least one player (probably more).

Granted, two of my themes are also available with but a few mouse clicks (most solvers and shortest/smallest puzzles), but they have a much higher chance of offering puzzles that a player can solve, regardless of their current skill level. For the most part, I would consider this to be good way to improve the players’ confidence, both in the suggestions, and in themselves. At least this is what my goal would be.