Pink Poogle Toy Forum

This week's Lenny Connundrum is as follows:

This thread isn't about this LC in particular, but about what it's saying: How do you feel about the answer being given away?

Here are some of my thoughts.

First off, people naturally want to work together on something like this. Working together hugely increases the chances of getting a prize, and only minimally reduces what the prize is. Especially to the point is that few people—in fact, no one I've talked to—care about the NP part of the prize, which is the only thing that is reduced for someone who shares. What matters is the trophy and the pride you get from the Wednesday neomail that says you were in the top 250 (and, to a lesser extent, the item, which is often worth 5-10k).

Second, even if there were only one prize to be had, and giving away the answer meant you got none, it would still be better to work together. I'd rather see my friend get the prize than some person I've never seen before and probably never will. And even if I'm working with some random person John who isn't my friend, working together means there's a better chance that one of the two of us will get the prize, and both of our individual chances are increased.

So I don't think it's possible to say "don't work together".

Only now we have a problem: There's no clear line between working together and giving the answer away. Let me put a real-world example to you.

In the recent LC about the Kacheek with a string of petpets, one of which went missing, approximately the following conversation took place:


So here, obviously, Person A could not have gotten the answer without person B. Does that mean the answer was given away? Or was it working together, since A helped B find the answer faster? Different people will give different answers; the line is blurry.

So you can't make people not want to work together, and you can't say working together is okay but giving the answer is not. What can you do? You could ban working together altogether, but that's unenforcable—people use a private forum or chat room, and there's no way to tell if they worked together or alone. And making unenforcable rules is a bad idea.

So those are my thoughts. (Sorry this was so long, I just kept writing more. ) What are yours?

I agree ^^ for the reason given through the example. I know I would never get the answer without help for most of the puzzles. But I remove myself from this discussion (aside from this show of support) because I next to never even attempt the LC.

Working Together: Fine with me
Posting the answer on the boards: NOT OK

Sideways, confusing hints are best.

On the spelling tile one, where the answer was Caylis, this is what I saw on the boards:


The first, third, and maybe even second clues are somewhere in fair/OK range. The fourth one, obviously not.

But generally, I prefer it if someone who knows the answer, when I don't, puts up kind of difficult clues. It makes it seem more like I actually achieved something when I figure it out too, even if I don't get a trophy.

Working together, each person has actually worked on the puzzle. If one person just unscrambles the letters that took 20+ steps to filter out of the puzzle, that's not really much work, is it.

Trouble is, forget the neoboards, it's groups of people in chat rooms that pass answers around. Neo will never be able to do anything about that.

Hmm, unless you could be flagged if half the people in your guild or nf list also won

I think it's completely wrong to post the answer because it's a matter that you've ruined all the efforts of those who took the time to solve it on their own (with a group or whatever.) If you were post a clue or something to point in the right direction (like we here on the forums have adopted in rules for these games), it's fair to all who have partisipated.

I think though that statement is slightly misleading IMO.

I think that working together privately is okay, posting it for everyone to see isn't. Unfortunately, I don't see the posting of the answer stopping.

That said, I do empathize with them. I make puzzles and sometimes I wonder why I spend days, and sometimes weeks, working on interesting puzzles when the first people to solve them post the solutions all over the place. I sometimes say that someday I'll just make a puzzle that is a door, and the solution is to open it by turning the knob. You just get to a point where you can't help but think, "Why do I even bother?" I have a feeling that is exactly the way they're feeling right now.

I find it totally irrelevant wheteher the answer is given out or not, even when blatently posted on the neoboards it seems as only up to 1000 people actually play it. People that solve the lenny conundrum on their own first get the trophies anyway.

I'm not sure how to answer this question - I've never once in my life gotten the answer right, not on my own and not from other people's help/answers, either. I think, though, if two people were discussing the answer together (and somewhere other people couldn't see it), it might be okay, especially since that's very much like two people discussing it in real life - who's to stop them, and why?
But when it gets posted for people to see, even a small amount of people, I just think that's quite unfair.

The people who come after the first 250, though, don't get anything but their share of the np prize pool (do they?) so answers being given out would probably annoy these people, lol.

Well... despite the fact that even when I do take the time to answer it, I get it wrong, it bothers me that people post the answers everywhere. Thats not how the answers are supposed ot be found. And I work hard weekly to get my answer wrong! If I get it wrong, in an honest matter, thats my own darn fault for simply being that stupid when it comes to word problems (never was good at them in math), so, thusly;

People shouldn't give out the answers en masse; working together (with a partner, whatever). But en masse? Pah. No fun in that.

Like everyone else, I have no problems with people working together to solve it, and giving subtle hints to people to work it out - as we do here.

Giving out the answer, so that 2000 people then know it, I have a problem with though. They could at least put some effort into it.

I'm glad that they did this.
I've only gotten the Lenny Conundrum right once, and it wasn't even quick enough to get a trophy, and (not to brag) but I figured it out myself!
I've seen since all these posts on the neoboards pretty much giving away the answers, and as I am tempted to put those in and get the neopoints, it hardly gives me any satisfaction at all to do such.. So I haven't.
I'm glad they brought this up though.. but it doesn't seem like it's been working.. which is unfortunate.

As someone that NORMALLY works out the LC for himself each week, and almost always gets it right, I AM NOT bothered by the hints that are given on the neoboards each week, because maybe once or so a month I use them.

In fact, for the caylis LC, I was pretty much stuck. The hints that let me to the right answer were: Use the smaller numbers, don't use the letters that need another letter (obviously this is Q), and plot character. I answered immediately, and got the 3rd place trophy.

I DO, however, have a problem with the people that post AS THEIR TOPIC "the answer to the LC is anubis!!!!" (which i saw), and then when people yell at them, they insist that it's fair for them to give out the answer because they worked it out themself and they're sharing their own NP. YOU'RE NOT!!!! You are taking away from everyone else's NP too! If you wanted to be that generous, seriously, just give your prize money away to someone, but don't spam the answers. Hints I'm fine with... but if someone who just happened to being on the Games board sees a LC topic, clicks it, and the answer is spelled out in copy-paste form for them to enter... then that makes me angry.

In fact, there are certain people in LC topics on neoboards at this second who are saying that the people at fault for this week's LC are the people "who whine about others giving away the answer".

Also I think a large majority of those who spam the answer entered the wrong one and figured it out later and didn't wanna feel like they were missing out on anything =p

I don't agree with people giving the exact answer away to anyone really. If you're working with people chances are they knew the direction you were going when you got your answer so a couple of hints should be more than sufficient. Hints I don't have a problem with - people still have to work.

One way to stop it: Lost desert plot style!

Everybody would have a SLIGHTLY different puzzle of the same type!