Difficulty Assignment Improvement Project

[GooRoo]

Jan 24, 2024 16:24:09 GMT -8 swietymiki said:

To answer your questions in detail, I'm afraid I'd have to replay all of those levels again, since I gave these ratings over 4 years ago. But, back in the day I used to post lengthy descriptions from my experiences playing Custom Levels, so perhaps some of your questions could be answered by those. For instance, here's a link to my post regarding Uphill Battle: gooroosgruntz.proboards.com/post/25937/thread

Wow! Until you sent me to that thread, I didn't realize how much discussion it caused! Eight pages worth, and your post related a lot of problems that I never really addressed in the Quest. Changing the timing is certainly something that should have been done. (And the"View the map" doesn't even show that Rolling Snowball, for me to see where it starts ... HOW it starts.

[GooRoo]

I stated my case for re-ratings in this thread (link was supposed to take you to the exact post ... it doesn't ) as a problem in the many changes required. Each Quest re-rated means Designer, graphics set, Alphabetical order, release date and TWO difficulty indices would require changes. (Removing a Quest from one index and pasting it into the re-rated index.)

I certainly agree that unfair, inaccurate ratings exist. One of the main reasons for Quest threads is to discuss what makes a puzzle hard (or too easy, too time-consuming, etc.) for those new to the Quest to decide if the puzzle is "one for me".

[swietymiki]

Personally, I avoid reading the discussion of a level before starting it because it often contains hints or solutions to difficult puzzles. The difficulty rating displayed in the main post should be matching with the result of that discussion, so that solvers wouldn't have to read spoilers before playing.