How to Improve Wheel

[Jay Temple]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'229570\' date=\'Oct 31 2009, 06:45 PM\'][quote name=\'HYHYBT\' post=\'229569\' date=\'Oct 31 2009, 04:42 PM\']5 consonants and 1 vowel, but each is revealed before the player picks the next.[/quote]
Other than "jacking up the prize budget," how do you feel this will improve the show?
[/quote]
It would make the choice of letters more interesting. As for the prize budget, they'd simply have to adjust the puzzle difficulty. My alternate idea is to start with the same 5C+1V, but have puzzles where there are exactly three other consonants and one other vowel uncovered. That way, every player has the same chance of filling the puzzle in completely.

[Darion Blackwood Daniel]

I am already thinking of a few things:

1. Stop offering trips all the time as prizes.  TPIR knows that.  (e.g. CARS)

2. Double Play worthwhile?

3. Raise the top prize to $200,000.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' post=\'229575\' date=\'Oct 31 2009, 06:52 PM\']It would make the choice of letters more interesting.[/quote]
It would also slow the endgame down to a crawl. And I posit that in order even out for the prize budget the difficulty would have to be increased enough that the choice of letters would no longer be interesting, since the majority of the time it would be something along the lines of "Hell, I dunno. N."

[Twentington]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'229582\' date=\'Oct 31 2009, 11:18 PM\'][quote name=\'Jay Temple\' post=\'229575\' date=\'Oct 31 2009, 06:52 PM\']It would make the choice of letters more interesting.[/quote]
It would also slow the endgame down to a crawl. And I posit that in order even out for the prize budget the difficulty would have to be increased enough that the choice of letters would no longer be interesting, since the majority of the time it would be something along the lines of "Hell, I dunno. N."
[/quote]

I think the bonus round as fine as is. Sometimes I think they could stand to make the puzzles a bit easier, but after some absolutely asinine bonus puzzles in most of the past 15+ years, they do seem to be reining in the difficulty a bit. Well, there're still SQUEAKING BY (which they've used before) and HAZY MORNING to contend with. Besides, I think the randomness is part of what makes it work: if they made it ascending difficulty, you'd automatically know the $100,000's every time just because the puzzle is something asinine like QUIZZICAL LOOK.

/HAIR DYE is possibly the easiest puzzle that's ever thrown me
//and DUBUQUE IOWA possibly the hardest that I've nailed on just RSTLNE

[Sodboy13]

[quote name=\'Darion Blackwood Daniel\' post=\'229577\' date=\'Oct 31 2009, 09:07 PM\']3. Raise the top prize to $200,000.[/quote]

When was it brought down from $1,000,000?

[JasonA1]

While I was never an every day watcher, today's Wheel is as entertaining to me as it was in the past, if not moreso. It lacks variety in certain ways (most of them mentioned here). When a show has made winning $15,000 in one round and $25,000 in the endgame underwhelming, something's not right. But I'd rather have more whizbang in the form of the colors and gift tags and special rounds after years and years of solving puzzles.

Looking back to 88-89 recently, when the show was arguably its most stripped down, there's the same "lack of variety" problem. Contestants day to day rarely broke certain score thresholds, 25k was picked 98% of the time in the bonus, no road trips/set changes, etc. Seems to be the nature of the beast. Friedman should get credit for keeping it interesting.

My changes, very simple: bring more variety to the prizes (but namely in the prize puzzles themselves) and add a few intermediary values to the wheel.

A lot of the other suggestions I see here fall in that category of making WoF a better game, when Wheel has never been about gamesmanship. A person who knows the puzzle early has always been encouraged to push their luck to rack up a total.

Those of you crowing about getting rid of a daily Prize Puzzle must be forgetting the whole SPIN ID tie-in which gives a casual viewer a reason to watch every single day. There's probably a lot of revenue there, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted this long, and grown into most of the show.

And because I can almost sense an argument that Jeopardy! has lasted this long without resorting to gimmickry, I will present the fairly frequent set changes, Clue Crew, dollars doubling, new car bonuses and other changes as counter evidence. Sure it doesn't reek of "we're getting old" as much as the Million Dollar Wedge and everything that preceded it on Wheel, but the function of those "improvements" seems about the same.

[quote name=\'wheelloon\' post=\'229493\' date=\'Oct 30 2009, 03:15 PM\']Merv originally envisioned the set of Wheel, in his own words, as "A stage full of prizes."[/quote]

Wasn't Lin Bolen the catalyst for shopping/prizes?

-Jason

[wheelloon]

[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'229588\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 02:43 AM\']Wasn't Lin Bolen the catalyst for shopping/prizes?

-Jason[/quote]

She was, but Merv supposedly also was explicit in saying he wanted the show to be prize-oriented, which is where such came from. Both Vanna and Nancy Jones talked about Merv's original vision for the show a bit in a number of interviews in the 80's/90's. This is where the quote was brought up before. Did Merv originally think the show should give away just cash though? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm very much leaning no.

As for the same prizes being picked, circa 88-89, that's why it was such the WHEEL envelopes introduced next season were so well received, because the "lack of variety, in the bonus round" was exactly the case. But that's also why, wayyy back in the days, I thought incorporating the Wheel into the Bonus Round would be so cool, as it would not only continue the show's supposed theme of "WHEEL of Fortune" but add that much more variety. Of all the things I've ragged on the show about, I'm also just as adamant that with how iconic it is and how incredibly simple yet effective it is, the Bonus Round, in its rules and basic game play, should not be touched. Prize-wise though, it can be lumped in with the rest of the show, as it's still the same basic "problem" and/or concept, and changing the stuff up for grabs shouldn't have to affect the rules of the round without making it that much more potentially and needlessly complicated to explain (thus why the Wild Card tends to, some days, *cues Peter Griffin voice* Really Grind my Gears).

/Still never thought, nor do I think some other game show fans the same, I'd see the day come that Wheel no longer gives away automobiles...

[Jimmy Owen]

The program is as popular as ever, so maybe it ain't broke, but I propose a different mechanism for choosing the letters in the bonus.  Have five mini-wheels with one containing the vowels and the other 4 consisting of consonants.  Maybe throw in a "wild card" space.  Spin the wheels at approx the same time to get your letters.  That would bring wheels back in as part of the game and allow the writers a little more freedom on crafting the puzzles.

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'229593\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 04:46 AM\']The program is as popular as ever, so maybe it ain't broke, but I propose a different mechanism for choosing the letters in the bonus.  Have five mini-wheels with one containing the vowels and the other 4 consisting of consonants.  Maybe throw in a "wild card" space.  Spin the wheels at approx the same time to get your letters.  That would bring wheels back in as part of the game and allow the writers a little more freedom on crafting the puzzles.[/quote]Yeah, and when you get X, Q, V, Z, and U...then what?

[Jimmy Owen]

[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'229594\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 04:55 AM\'][quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'229593\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 04:46 AM\']The program is as popular as ever, so maybe it ain't broke, but I propose a different mechanism for choosing the letters in the bonus.  Have five mini-wheels with one containing the vowels and the other 4 consisting of consonants.  Maybe throw in a "wild card" space.  Spin the wheels at approx the same time to get your letters.  That would bring wheels back in as part of the game and allow the writers a little more freedom on crafting the puzzles.[/quote]Yeah, and when you get X, Q, V, Z, and U...then what?
[/quote]

Well, on that day, the bonus round might go unwon.    I was thinking of having TVWX and Z configured on the same wheel, so you'd have only one of those letters come up.  Hopefully (if you're a contestant) you'll get the T or the W.

[Joe Mello]

[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'229588\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 02:43 AM\']Those of you crowing about getting rid of a daily Prize Puzzle must be forgetting the whole SPIN ID tie-in which gives a casual viewer a reason to watch every single day. There's probably a lot of revenue there, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted this long, and grown into most of the show.[/quote]
Which would explain why Jeopardy is doing a similar thing for their viewers.

The Prize Puzzle and 5k prize minimum are bells they can't un-ring, and that probably hampers the game proper more than helps it.

[CJBojangles]

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'229564\' date=\'Oct 31 2009, 02:01 PM\']The first player to solve three puzzles wins the game and moves on to the solo game. That means that a match can carryover into another episode. If you solve a puzzle, you keep what you win.[/quote]
Y'know, I'm really intrigued by this idea. Although, and this could just be the Halloween hangover, I can't remember any 3-player games in recent history that straddled. I loved when Bergeron Squares did it because it didn't make the game feel so rushed and allowed for more celebrity interaction. I wouldn't mind seeing Wheel try the same approach, but never end the show mid-puzzle.

Maybe incorporate this little wrinkle, and while adding some middle values to the wheel (like your $1000, $1500 or $2000) increase the TDV $500 or even $1,000 each round.

[BrandonFG]

Honestly, I think the bonus round is fine as it is. It's one of those things that has worked for so long (like the Showcase Showdown and Final Jeopardy!), so why alter it? I don't like the idea of getting almost half the alphabet to solve a puzzle, and I'd maybe do something to change that, perhaps just get the RSTLNE, I dunno.

I just think too much is going on with the show for a 22-minute timeslot. However, when I saw the 1978 episode at the Museum of TV and Radio, I was honestly somewhat bored. It was all spin-solve-shop, lather-rinse-repeat. The bonus round helped liven things up a bit, which may be why I enjoy the early-to-mid-80s era. That, and the new set (at the time, c. 1982) added a bit of glitz and glamour to the show. That being said, I think the show hit its stride between 1989-93 or so. Although they lost shopping, the show had just enough variety to keep it from being a pedestrian word game.

I would try and keep the contemporary style of today, mix in some of the 80s glitz (some of the more elaborate prizes, more than just trips), but add some of the variety of the early-90s. Throw in the shopping round I suggested, drop the $2,000 (and maybe even the $3,000) Toss-Ups. I'd maybe even make the shopping round a Prize Puzzle, in that the home viewer wins the same stuff that the contestant buys, and that's the contestant's prize(s). The show could still offer some decent little trips (3-4 days) for under $2,500.

[Twentington]

[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'229594\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 04:55 AM\'][quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'229593\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 04:46 AM\']The program is as popular as ever, so maybe it ain't broke, but I propose a different mechanism for choosing the letters in the bonus.[/quote]Yeah, and when you get X, Q, V, Z, and U...then what?
[/quote]

Then you might actually be able to solve a sadistic puzzle like JURY BOX.

[chad1m]

*shrug*
I like Wheel, I don't mind the changes they've made, I don't see any reason to change the core of the game and I'll continue watching at the same regularity I do now.