Clash of Code : Bugs & Improvement

Feedback & Bugs
#1

Clash of Code has just been launched in Beta!

What is it?

It’s a new multiplayer gaming mode where you can challenge your friends in short coding battles.
The aim is to solve a given puzzle within the constraints of the chosen game mode.

Duration

There are 3 available duration for Clashes:

  • “Fastest”: 5 minutes
  • “Coffee Break”: 10 minutes
  • “Reflection”: 20 minutes

Game modes

There are 3 different modes to play with, but they are randomly applied when a Clash is launched (i.e.: you cannot select your mode):

  • Fastest: the aim is to be the first one to solve the problem, as fast as possible
  • Shortest: you have to write the shortest solution possible
  • Reverse: you have to code without being able to see the statement

Starting/Joining a Clash

You can choose either to launch your own Clash and wait for players to join it (or invite people you follow to join your game), or you can join an existing Clash.

When a Clash is pending, players wait in the lobby for others players to join. The Clash creator can however decide to launch the Clash by clicking the Start button.

Rewards

Winning Clashes allows you to earn Coding Points.
There is also a special CoC leaderboard, so you can see how you’re ranked among Clashers.

Known Bugs :

  • Popup while the clash is invalid is not displayed correctly Fixed
  • Notifications are sent even if the Codingamer is not is the Clash anymore. Fixed
  • There is no gamercard in the report page Fixed
  • Clicking on the “Clashed” or “Score” menus doesn’t do anything. Fixed

New requested features:

  • As a CodinGamer, I want to see the In Progress clashes. Fixed
  • As a CodinGamer, I want to clash against people using the same kind of language.
  • Avoid negative scores
  • As a CodinGamer, I want a sound effect when the clash starts

Clash of Code available here

8 Likes
#2
#3

No longer noticing this.

2 Likes
#4

I want theses features so much, what about you :frowning:

As a Codingamer, I want to see the In Progress clashes.

As a Codingamer, I want to clash against people using the same kind of language.

2 Likes
#5

Regarding the leaderboard:

  • Clicking on the “Clashed” or “Score” menus doesn’t do anything. We should not be able to click on it.
  • We should do something to avoid negative scores :smiley:
1 Like
#6

The puzzle with the 9-D stuff and 169 to 130 and replacing 17 with 12 is worded confusingly to me. Perhaps change to "Create the lowest integer from the input with the choice of subtracting each digit from 9 or not. For example, 17 can become 12 by changing the ones digit from 7 to 2 because 9-7 = 2.

1 Like
#7

Thanks for your feedback. The best way to raise feedback regarding the statements is to use the feedback poll that is on the right of the clash ranking. I’ll review and update the questions as soon as possible.

Edit: btw, can you add the statement language in the feedback entry? Otherwise I can’t tell which statement must be improved.

#8

Feature request: Customizable clashes. A bit like SaiksyApo already mentioned, but I’m asking for more power, e.g. turn off golfing challenges, only enable algorihms, disable bit fiddling (if there is or wil be any)
You get the idea :slight_smile:

4 Likes
#9

Feature Request: Change how the time gets reduced by people submitting
On the golf-type challenges, people can cut the time by submitting partial solutions, and in doing so prevent the people who are able to get full solutions done in the time from finishing it. If a solution isn’t 100%, should it really cut the time in half? I think it would be more fair if only full solutions could cut the time, otherwise, the cheap strategy of quick-submitting a half-done solution would be pretty a viable strategy to win.

#10

And, in that case, the clash shouldn’t be taken into consideration for the ranking.

1 Like
#11

Display the puzzle title in the report page. The reason is that I have 2 notifications of ended clashes and I can’t tell on which one I finished 1st or 2nd.

3 Likes
#12

Might be a too extreme solution to the specific problem that the score would be too broad if we allow such power, nevertheless, everyone would understand such a step, but please consider that the score might be too broad, too, since you have many specific problems to tackle not everyone is even knowing of. This means failing much in one category, but, I’m exaggerating right now, winning in another.
If the target of Clash of Code is to improve on a major scale, then ignoring any score if you turn off some category would be the way to go. (this way, being able to toggle categories wouldn’t make sense either, since it misses the target of CoC, but it would be still fun to be able tho)
But if the target is to improve specific skills, then a more specific score might be the way to go, meaning a specific rating for every different category for which you have the power to turn on or off. However, this will lead to the problem of how to organize this, since you already get a category for every single language, because of code golf. (Java vs Ruby, who’ll win?)
Having such an amount of possible scorings seems to make it overly complicated, doesn’t it?
I would suggest, because I really like the idea of improving in many ways, to use just one overall score, but to calculate that in a different manner, e.g. count less points the more you do specific challenges of the same configuration. It makes no sense to count even more less points if you switch it sometime, since it would be completely different. But even this way, every score should be displayed somehow. Sadly I have no suggestion for this, I suck at design and I think there is… What about a pie-chart? The more same (meaning not so broad) challenges you do, the less percents for the chart you get. The overall CoC score is the sum of every category displayed in that chart multiplied by it’s percentage. Something like that maybe. … Anyways,
Depending on what Clash of Code wants to archive the solution is different, either use one very broad score or a more specific one. If the more specific one will be the way to go, then there will be much more stuff to think of.

#13

About the time shortening feature, I and others find it incredibly frustrating for a couple reasons.

If you’re in a “fastest to code” challenge, then cutting time isn’t really relevant. If you finished first, you finished first, no matter how long the other people take after you. All the cutting time does is “provide an extra challenge” (i guess), but more often it frustrates slower coders as they’ll get cut off in the middle of working. Even though they know they’ve lost, it’s much less annoying to be able to finish and submit at 100% then have a 95% done piece of code that submits at 0% because you couldn’t finish up the key piece to tie it all back together.

For the “code size” challenges, this creates an opportunity for tactics like writing acceptable code then submitting early to try to cut people off, rather than everyone trying to golf their best, which doesn’t feel in the spirit of these clashes.

9 Likes
#14

EDIT : I saw it, thanks. Hope it will be fix asap :frowning:

1 Like
#15

Edit : Already fixed in dev.

1 Like
#16

Recommend the Hofstader-conway sequence puzzle to be a coffee break difficulty rather than a Superfast difficulty

#17

Thanks but for comments about the clash questions, it’s better to leave a message in the feedback form. This thread is more about the game itself.

By the way, thank you all for your help improving the statements, we have received some feedback for approximatively three fourth of the questions. Keep clashing!

#18

//about one of the problems:
yesterday i solved CoC problem (you must answer if this figure is square). I just checked if sides equals and got 100% but figure with equalent sides isnt square - it’s rhombus!
please upgrade tests.

#19 
For all players of the clash -> Pick a question never done
IF 0 -> Pick a combo question/mode never done
IF 0 -> Pick a question with the less feedback (BETA ONLY)
ELSE random()
1 Like
#20

Personally, I would like to see some more difficult puzzles for the reflections category. I would like to see more distinct concepts represented. I didn’t find many Dynamic-Programming problems, which I think can be a lot of fun.

I love a lot of the puzzles I’ve seen so far, thank you.