Major Alphabetics Flaw

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'adamjk\' date=\'May 3 2004, 06:29 PM\'] True, but you must remember, that in this day and age, there's really not time for a full 5th question [/quote]
 If the format doesn't fit in the alloted time, then maybe there is a problem with the format.

If you brought me a new proposal that didn't work in the alloted time, I would tell you so and suggest you rework it such that it did.

If doing so made the proposal suck, then I would pass and look for something else.

The time constraints of this format are right on the border of making this show suck.

[Mike Tennant]

Getting back to Alphabetics, the very fact that the celebrity could give as many one-word clues as necessary, as long as he paused briefly between them, always seemed to me to defeat the purpose of requiring single-word clues.  By stringing together as many clues as necessary, a clue-giver could essentially state a whole sentence description of the word without penalty.  Yes, I recognize there are time constraints to doing this sort of thing, but it still seems like it's not quite within the original concept (although I guess it was really no different back in the Lightning Round days, so maybe not).

Here's an idea which might help to reduce the possibility of exceptionally long clues:  How about doubling the jackpot if a player can guess all the words with only one clue per word?  Alternatively, how about reducing the jackpot if more than, say, three clues are needed for a player to guess a word?

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Mike Tennant\' date=\'May 3 2004, 06:35 PM\'] Here's an idea which might help to reduce the possibility of exceptionally long clues:  How about doubling the jackpot if a player can guess all the words with only one clue per word?  Alternatively, how about reducing the jackpot if more than, say, three clues are needed for a player to guess a word? [/quote]
 There is no way the average viewer at home would be able to keep track of this or have an idea of what happened when the conditions are satisfied.

[Mike Tennant]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'May 3 2004, 08:39 PM\'][quote name=\'Mike Tennant\' date=\'May 3 2004, 06:35 PM\'] Here's an idea which might help to reduce the possibility of exceptionally long clues:  How about doubling the jackpot if a player can guess all the words with only one clue per word?  Alternatively, how about reducing the jackpot if more than, say, three clues are needed for a player to guess a word? [/quote]
There is no way the average viewer at home would be able to keep track of this or have an idea of what happened when the conditions are satisfied.[/quote]
I definitely considered that in the latter scenario and would probably reject it for that very reason.  On the other hand, I think the former (every word guessed with one clue) could be understood well enough and followed fairly easily with a simple on-screen indicator.

[Steve McClellan]

[quote name=\'CJBojangles\' date=\'May 3 2004, 05:55 PM\']

Here's one I remembered, from 100k Pyramid. The fact that if you passed a word in the main game, you couldn't go back to it.

I'll take this one. I really don't see that as a flaw of the game, maybe an inconvenience, but that's just the way the game works.

During today's run of Pyramid you can come back if there is time, they just have the extra "Have to say the word before you say pass to receive credit" rule stuck in there to... Well I really don't know why, now that I think of it.[/quote]
I've thought about this one quite a bit, and the conclusion I came to is that both cases are matters of making the game fit the technology instead of vice versa.

In the '70s and '80s, they loaded in all of the words ahead of time, in order, so it was difficult to go back and display, say, the fourth word after that last one had been gotten. However, it was no problem to add another point to the score when a team threw a word back in after a pass, hence the '70s and '80s rules.

On the current version, of course, it's all done by computer, and they can very easily push one button when a team gets a word, taking it out of the mix, and another when they pass, keeping it in and revealing it again after all have been seen once. However, they apparently found it too difficult to provide for another button to prevent a previously-passed word from reappearing in case of a throwback. So, they just act as if the throwback never happened. This one was definitely more easily preventable, but that's just one more example of the lack of attention to detail on the Osmond show.

[Jay Temple]

First off, yes, I meant Super Password, not P+.

[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' date=\'May 2 2004, 11:40 PM\']

P+ had a flaw in the maingame and one in the bonus.  In the maingame, the $100 puzzle had no bearing on the outcome of the game.  The problem in the bonus wasn't as bad as the old version, but it was a flaw nonetheless.  The jackpot started at $5,000 and went up $5,000 each time it wasn't one.  The effect was that you would end up with less money by winning every round than if you won your last one and lost every round before that, with some money.

True - if you managed to get to the end game the second time.  (There was a recent thread about a Classic Concentration player who got all of the matches but one in the end game in about 27 seconds - and then stopped guessing because he wanted to win more prizes in the head-to-head game; I don't think he got back to the end game a second time.)  By that logic, the entire concept of The $20,000 Pyramid is bad (you have to lose twice at the winner's circle in order to have a chance at the $20,000).[/quote]
Yes, as a matter of fact, it was a bad concept, even worse than the one in my OP.  It's the one thing I always hated about the prize structure.

$50,000 Pyramid:  The way to qualify for the tournament is getting 7/7 in the fastest time for that week.  However, if your opponent does so poorly that you only need 6 to win the game (and play for a piddling $5,000 compared to previous incarnations), you get one less opportunity to beat the time.

I thought the sixth category was played through, unless they gave an illegal clue, regardless of the score (like how they handle "Mystery 7" in other versions if it comes up at the end of the game), except that they may have stopped if the time needed to be the "Person of the Week" was passed.

-- Don

I just watched an ep a couple months ago.  I'll backpedal a little:  I don't remember whether they stopped when it was past the time to beat, but I definitely remember that they stopped.

[adamjk]

I've noticed something on Wheel that seems to be unfair. For the prize puzzle, whatever the prize is, it's total is added to the person/teams total winnings. I don't think that should count for total winnings, since it was given to them, rather then them earning it. By that I mean, sure they solved the puzzle to win the prize that went with it, but they didn't actually land on a space with that prize on the wheel. What do you guys think?

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'adamjk\' date=\'May 7 2004, 07:12 PM\'] I've noticed something on Wheel that seems to be unfair. For the prize puzzle, whatever the prize is, it's total is added to the person/teams total winnings. I don't think that should count for total winnings, since it was given to them, rather then them earning it. By that I mean, sure they solved the puzzle to win the prize that went with it, but they didn't actually land on a space with that prize on the wheel. What do you guys think? [/quote]
 I think it should be played either on every show or not at all, rather than just on some shows. That seems more unfair than the value of the prize being added to the player's score.

[adamjk]

I've been watching every night of late, and to my knowledge each show has had one. One question, how is how often it is played unfair?

[starcade]

Of course, situations like this would actually have me propose that an illegal clue ends the bonus game on the spot.

[starcade]

No, they do win the prize.

You win the prize when you win the "Prize Puzzle".  Just imagine it as an unremovable prize on the front of each player/team's score...

(Unremovable in that a Bankrupt doesn't get rid of it -- it's not actually in their "bank"...)

[Craig Karlberg]

True.  But it seems that all prize puzzles ever since they started this Wheel Watchers Spin ID contest, EVERY PRIZE is a trip of some kind while the home viewer whose ID # is displayed for him/her to claim within 24 hours after its airing.  That bothers me.  Don't they have prize puzzles that are non-trip related?  GEEZ!

[WilliamPorygon]

By my count, since they introduced prize puzzles in September, there have been... two of them that weren't trips.  What's even more bothersome is most of the time the description is generic enough that it could be a trip to just about anywhere.  I don't see why they even bother; I find it to be more of an annoyance when they do one now, especially when it sways the outcome of the game.

On top of that, Pat seems to often neglect to mention that it's a prize puzzle until the producer reminds him after the contestant's first spin.  Don't they tell him ahead of time, or put something on the teleprompter or his card so he'll know?

[starcade]

That's probably Pat being the host and doing that to surprise the contestants more than anyone else...