Each puzzle needs to have validators different than the publicly visible test cases in order to prevent cheating by hardcoding outputs. I understand what you are trying to do and I applaud. The problem is this: from what I gather, anyone can look into WIP/Ready puzzles and copy outputs from there. Right? I think that the validator I/O should not be publicly visible. Or maybe even abolished? Am I missing something here?
Indeed, you can copy outputs from WIP/Ready puzzles - but you have to do it at within a (sometimes short) timeframe that the contributor will not make any more changes to his contribution but it is not fully approved yet. I think the people that can look to already fully approved and live contributions is significantly smaller (from a certain level I guess), so the cheating by visiting WIP/Ready would only work for most people if the contribution is not yet live.
Validators need to be part of the WIP/Ready approval system, because it is very important that those are checked as well.
As for fully abolishing: I think having the validators in place is a ‘(much) better than nothing’ approach. If there would have been no validators, personally I think for some puzzles I would have been tempted to hardcode one or two of the cases to get to that 100%. However, it feels too far for me to visit WIP/Ready and to start saving all solution codes.
And, after all, we are all playing codingame here - the goals of games are to have fun and be challenged. I like to make the puzzles and then get reward of all validators turning green after hard work. I hate it if I do not get the green - but then simply hardcoding or copying solution code would definitely not give me a rewarding feeling. With most games, if you want you can cheat, but why would you if that would take away the fun and challenge?
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A member will be allowed to see the current validators when he is above a certain level.
Puzzle lovers will find solving puzzles to be a joy. It is not a competition and no valuable prize is given. We believe people would not easily abuse this right to spoil the joy in the challenge.
There could be occasional jerks who do not enjoy challenges anyway. Let them peek all secrets as they like and hardcode their cheated lives as they wish. I don’t care.
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