Worst scoring flaw?

[Neumms]

Also, creepy disco dancers aside, the 1978 revival is still the best NTT iteration.

...joined by any "both players write down titles simultaneously" game (like Sing-a-Tune) so the contestants got a chance to use different skills during the show.

I liked the version with the $100,000 Mystery Tune way better. Well orchestrated, suspenseful, and it was all season long.

Everyone may disagree, but I've always been bugged that in Melody Roulette, the wheel didn't affect the score. I'd rather they tallied the money at the end as the score so the wheel means something for the game than best of five tunes with a shiny object. I liked Money Trees, too, even if it was tacky.

Writing the answers in Sing-a-Tune was awkward. Art Fleming showed you what his players wrote, but with Tom, you're taking his word for it. Maybe they could have built a wall a la Dotto, where we could see what they're writing without them seeing each other.

[SuperMatch93]

Maybe they could have built a wall a la Dotto, where we could see what they're writing without them seeing each other.

Or done it Second Chance style and had them place their pads in a slot in front of them, but still out of view of their opponent.

[wdm1219inpenna]

While not so much a scoring flaw, Card Sharks 2001, one player could call all the cards correctly and make one miscall on the final card and the other player won by default.  Horrible!

Top Card's end game was anti-climactic if a player could not get to 21.  It always rubbed me wrong that the Ace was only worth 1 on that show.  Also rubbed me wrong that a player could get a question correct in the end game and for a Joker to turn up, thereby causing the player to lose.  Seemed downright sinister for a player to get a question correct in an end game only to lose!

Much as I preferred Password Plus over Super Password, SP got the end game right.  The "reducing the jackpot by 20% with an illegal clue" thing always seemed awkward to me on Password Plus. 

Also on Price is Right, the pricing game Money Game...a player can play it perfectly and win an automobile, but a player who makes 3 mistakes can still win the car PLUS extra money???  Should be one or the other, not both.  Seems wrong to reward more to a player who makes more mistakes in a game.

[chrisholland03]

Also on Price is Right, the pricing game Money Game...a player can play it perfectly and win an automobile, but a player who makes 3 mistakes can still win the car PLUS extra money???  Should be one or the other, not both.  Seems wrong to reward more to a player who makes more mistakes in a game.

I understand your sentiment and agree in context of today's world.  There's an underlying strategy that you're missing, which had significance in the era the game was created. 

[tyshaun1]

While not so much a scoring flaw, Card Sharks 2001, one player could call all the cards correctly and make one miscall on the final card and the other player won by default.  Horrible!

This reminded me of an episode of Hit Man I watched a while ago on YouTube. One of the challengers did not answer a single question correctly and still went on to the Triple Crown round.

[SamJ93]

Also on Price is Right, the pricing game Money Game...a player can play it perfectly and win an automobile, but a player who makes 3 mistakes can still win the car PLUS extra money???  Should be one or the other, not both.  Seems wrong to reward more to a player who makes more mistakes in a game.

I understand your sentiment and agree in context of today's world.  There's an underlying strategy that you're missing, which had significance in the era the game was created.

I must be missing it too then--is the "strategy" to intentionally make wrong guesses if you already know the price?

[jjman920]

Also on Price is Right, the pricing game Money Game...a player can play it perfectly and win an automobile, but a player who makes 3 mistakes can still win the car PLUS extra money???  Should be one or the other, not both.  Seems wrong to reward more to a player who makes more mistakes in a game.

Yeah, I feel like if you know the game and know the price of the car, a smart person can be rewarded by whiffing on three guesses and picking the highest amounts possible and then filling in the car. Of course, knowing the last two digits of a car’s price is difficult, but there was a period of time when they used stock cars with stock options. So, as long as they didn’t pull out a random luxury car, you’d have a good shot of memorizing it. Even today, they have many cars they like to use often while changing out trims and options, so if you remember the trim you’d probably have a good shot of knowing the first two digits.

I also don’t see the extra couple hundred bucks (while not nothing) as significant enough to feel slighted over anymore. Back when a couple hundred bucks could buy 15-20 tanks of gas compared to 3-4 now, maybe.

[TLEberle]

I also don’t see the extra couple hundred bucks (while not nothing) as significant enough to feel slighted over anymore. Back when a couple hundred bucks could buy 15-20 tanks of gas compared to 3-4 now, maybe.

Admittedly in the old days the consolation cash might be as much again as the value of the one-bid, and it is certainly nice to have that and not come off as a loser, but it's sort of like looking at the ten bucks if you get one right in Grand Game and say "It's not a loss! The player won something!"

There was a time when the show was in their last set redesign before Bob's last season and they repeatedly had a base level Ford Ranger that I think was $12,995--something that ended in 995 anyway. If that's the car I happen to be playing for I am plugging 95 in the back half and mowing down the front half numbers to win the car and not worrying about a check for $187.

[TimK2003]

While not so much a scoring flaw, Card Sharks 2001, one player could call all the cards correctly and make one miscall on the final card and the other player won by default.  Horrible!

This reminded me of an episode of Hit Man I watched a while ago on YouTube. One of the challengers did not answer a single question correctly and still went on to the Triple Crown round.

Speaking of Uncle Jay, the scoring methods in Rodeo Drive were off the rails as well.

From the Round 1 "Talk About" segment, even though the point values were supposedly in relation to the difficulty of each word, the word was chosen blindly by the contestant so the point values were a crap shoot.  Should've been a consistent point value for all words, and give the other 2 Yes/No players a chance to bet from a 100 -point starting amount. (I.e.  I will bet 50 of my 100 points that Joe will say that random word).

In Round 2, each Truth or Rumor question was worth 100 points each, which is fine and dandy.  However each contestant's turn allowed them to rack up  a streak of 100 points per correct answer until they got one wrong.  Unless you knew a lot about celebs, it was pretty much a coin toss guess on most questions as alot of the questions were little known facts or believable lies.  A much better scenario was to give each player one question a piece, keeping the game closer and avoid having dumb-luck runaway games.

[Nick]

I'm a bit surprised nobody's mentioned Go.  "At the end of round two, Bonnie Urseth's team has 250 points, and Charlie Siebert's team has 500 points.  Our goal is 1,500 points, so now we'll play a 750-point round that won't matter one bit when we play the final round for 1,250 points."

OK, maybe not the worst, but why play a round that is, at that point, clearly going to have no impact on the outcome of the game?  I suppose Family Feud was and is guilty enough of this with the first round in its various scoring formats, but at least it's disguised a little better when the dollar/point totals per round can vary based on performance.

It was a short-enough runner that I wonder if anybody knows just how many times on Go they ended up in the useless-third-round situation in the course of 79 episodes.

[rjaguar3]

Also flawed is the Eubanks Dream House series scoring of playing to a fixed number of questions: where you can guarantee a win by not challenging or where you must challenge to stay in the game (but some teams still didn't do this). I think Richard Reid was in the "viewers won't notice the scoring flaw if the host doesn't draw attention to it" camp.

[TLEberle]

The 750 point round isn’t useless if you win it and the game as it becomes another $187 for each teammate.

Also if you’re on Rodeo Drive and don’t know celebrity gossip you dood it wrong.

[MikeK]

The 750 point round isn’t useless if you win it and the game as it becomes another $187 for each teammate.

Plus winning the 750 round gets you two shots at the bonus if your team won the 250 and 500 rounds.  It could conceivably be worth an extra $2687 per civilian player.

[WilliamPorygon]

The 750 point round isn’t useless if you win it and the game as it becomes another $187 for each teammate.

Plus winning the 750 round gets you two shots at the bonus if your team won the 250 and 500 rounds.  It could conceivably be worth an extra $2687 per civilian player.

Yes, but we're specifically talking about the situation where the teams have split the 250 and 500 rounds.

[Brian44]

Regarding Money Game and being rewarded with less for making better car pricing guesses, the same goes for Pathfinder and the notion that you can't win the 3 SPs unless you need to earn additional chances. However, unless you're 100% certain of the prices of any SPs, there's no incentive to deliberately step to the wrong numbers in the price of the car.

That said, I've always thought that the contestants should be given the opportunity to price all 3 SPs upfront and receive insurance markers in case they do step to any of the wrong numbers.