08-03-2023, 02:01 PM
Having listened with interest for three days, and having thought about it in much more detail than is really reasonable, I must admit that - try as I might to give it the benefit of the doubt - I really do think there are serious flaws with this quiz - the questions are perfectly fine, but the scoring and needless complication of a joker really don't help its chances.
The quiz starts with Gary telling you that the maximum score is 65 points for playing the perfect game, but this means you generally finish every game feeling as though you've done terribly even when you really haven't. I attempted to play along and got half of the questions right in one round yesterday and I still ended up getting a single digit score as I didn't get enough consecutive right answers to build up to the higher points. Getting half of the questions right but only scoring 7/65 - and feeling like a dunce as a result - doesn't seem like a very good scoring system to me and doesn't exactly make you look forward to playing again tomorrow. (Perhaps I'm just bitter at having done poorly...)
Moreover, the nature of the scoring system can mean that one single slip up is calamitous, and you're disproportionately 'punished' for a wrong answer if it happens in the middle of your game. If you forget about the convoluted joker element and just think in terms of standard points, if you were to answer nine questions right and only miss one, you would score 45 points if you missed Q1 or Q10, as you'd still be able to build up all the way from one-point to nine-point questions, however, if you 'break the chain' of ascending points in the middle of your game (by getting Q5 or Q6 wrong), you immediately lose the ability to win more than five points in any one question, and your maximum score would be 25 points. You've lost out on twenty points there simply because you happened to get Q5 wrong rather than Q1. Is that a fair/sensible system? Seems like a real flaw in the format to me.
The way the scoring works is not only arguably much less fair than Popmaster, but it's a lot more difficult to keep track of. The 'increasing points until you get one wrong' format means that - unless you've got the exact same ones right/wrong as the player, you end up playing for a different number of points for that question and it can be confusing hearing Gary telling them "this one's for four points" when you're actually playing for, say, two points. The joker further complicates this. You can be playing for two points while the player on air is playing for seven points, which they play the joker on and end up winning (or losing) fourteen points for.
Ultimately, you need the quiz to be fool-proof; people are listening while at work, busy in the kitchen, driving... you need to be able to play along with ease. I'm really not sure you can say that about Ten To The Top and that seems to be a fatal flaw to me.
(Well done if you bothered to read all that.)
The quiz starts with Gary telling you that the maximum score is 65 points for playing the perfect game, but this means you generally finish every game feeling as though you've done terribly even when you really haven't. I attempted to play along and got half of the questions right in one round yesterday and I still ended up getting a single digit score as I didn't get enough consecutive right answers to build up to the higher points. Getting half of the questions right but only scoring 7/65 - and feeling like a dunce as a result - doesn't seem like a very good scoring system to me and doesn't exactly make you look forward to playing again tomorrow. (Perhaps I'm just bitter at having done poorly...)
Moreover, the nature of the scoring system can mean that one single slip up is calamitous, and you're disproportionately 'punished' for a wrong answer if it happens in the middle of your game. If you forget about the convoluted joker element and just think in terms of standard points, if you were to answer nine questions right and only miss one, you would score 45 points if you missed Q1 or Q10, as you'd still be able to build up all the way from one-point to nine-point questions, however, if you 'break the chain' of ascending points in the middle of your game (by getting Q5 or Q6 wrong), you immediately lose the ability to win more than five points in any one question, and your maximum score would be 25 points. You've lost out on twenty points there simply because you happened to get Q5 wrong rather than Q1. Is that a fair/sensible system? Seems like a real flaw in the format to me.
The way the scoring works is not only arguably much less fair than Popmaster, but it's a lot more difficult to keep track of. The 'increasing points until you get one wrong' format means that - unless you've got the exact same ones right/wrong as the player, you end up playing for a different number of points for that question and it can be confusing hearing Gary telling them "this one's for four points" when you're actually playing for, say, two points. The joker further complicates this. You can be playing for two points while the player on air is playing for seven points, which they play the joker on and end up winning (or losing) fourteen points for.
Ultimately, you need the quiz to be fool-proof; people are listening while at work, busy in the kitchen, driving... you need to be able to play along with ease. I'm really not sure you can say that about Ten To The Top and that seems to be a fatal flaw to me.
(Well done if you bothered to read all that.)
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