I am just noticing that Puzzles have been renamed into “Training” into the CG interface.
So this is it ? A couple of weeks ago CG decided to exclude the scores obtained at puzzles from the calculation of the player’s global ranking. This decision was followed by significant dissatisfaction amongst CG members.
I understood that those feedbacks would be taken into account and that there was still room from improvement. Fair enough.
Today i’m realizing that the said improvement was to actually go further in the same direction; ie. turning CG into an essentially multiplayer game platform, where people create bots to fight against one another.
Puzzles – which are significantly complex for a good part of them, compared to simple exercises most of Clashes of Codes are made of – are now downgraded to a mere “training”. An unappealing step to go through, before getting on with the one and only real stuff, which is clashing with other people’s bots. Seriously ?
To go one step further perhaps should you as well consider renaming the website into CodinFight ? This way you could make sure not to attract any of those lame people interested into solo games only.
Honestly i just don’t get it, this new direction is close to sabotage to me: why slam the door in the face of a whole part of the community and, more importantly, of the potential future audience while the whole system was there, up and running, to welcome them warmly ! That makes no sense to me; just thought i’d share and see if i’m the only one in this case.
I agree that Codingame has put a great emphasis on Multiplayer recently, the main argument in favor is that Solo Puzzle are indeed easier than Multiplayer for the most (very hard puzzle anyone?)
But in the meantime, someone pointed out that Third party contests creator (Nintendo, Winamax and Teads) won’t be that pleased to see their contest in “Training” section.
Moreover, I see Clash of Code in its current form more like a distraction to pass time than Solo Puzzles, and I think this one should be the one called training and not count for global ranking.
All in all, I can say that I’m not unbiased, because I also don’t like that all the work I put in Solo Puzzle goes into “this is my own training, so I’m good to go to multi now”, but I get why CodinGame wants us to go into Multiplayer more, because even if it’s not that hard to start a multiplayer game, to be in the top of one of those require far more skills than those required by Solo Puzzle.
Also, Multiplayer game allows more versatility to games creation: it’s far easier to create an innovative multiplayer game than to create a solo game that doesn’t use the same mechanic as those we currently have. And it probably a better representation of one’s skill for companies willing to hire someone, I guess?
[quote=“Magus, post:3, topic:1889, full:true”]
You are right on one point, i think CodinGame want to focus on multiplayers games. But i think Clashes of code should not reward any point until the copy/paste/farm problem is here.[/quote]
Since his/her question was about puzzles -> training, your answer seemed a bit to hijack the topic to speak about CoC. While I do agree with you (that’s why I speak about it too), the relevant part of the answer was to explain why puzzle was changed into training, not speak about CoC. Then afterwards, you could mention CoC like I did to put it in contrast with current Training.
It’s not that your answer wasn’t right, it just wasn’t complete and so felt off-topic (that’s why Neumann reacted too if you can see deleted messages).
There is always resistance to change, it’s normal. There has been dissatisfaction yes. I wouldn’t say it was a significant dissatisfaction amongst CodinGamers.
Not really. AI bot programming is still a small part of the platform. In multiplayer games you can also find optimization puzzles, Code golf puzzles and Clash of Code.
And let’s check the numbers:
11 easy puzzles, 17 medium puzzles, 16 hard puzzles, 7 very hard puzzles and more than 75 community puzzles
10 bot programming games
Where do you see that CodinGame is becoming essentially a multiplayer platform where people create bots?
So while I understand your frustration about the label “training” (which is just a wording, puzzles haven’t changed), allow me to compare it to running:
Let’s say I’m running twice a week. For two reasons: keep me in shape and step by step improving my condition and running capacities.
If I choose to participate in a marathon, I will compete against other runners like me and get a ranking among them. However if I choose not to participate in this kind of competitions and just continue to run twice a week, does it mean that I’m a bad runner? What would make my continuous training so bad? There is nothing wrong.
You’re continuously sharpening your skills doing the solo puzzles. You choose not to get into multiplayer games and that’s totally fine.
At the end of the day, yes we’re developing the multiplayer part of the platform, no it’s not getting essentially multiplayer.
PS: not mentioning the fact that the UI update has a lot of positive impact on the solo part.
Well, to pursue the running analogy, if I don’t plan on participating in a marathon, my running is not training. Training for what exactly? Running could be its own goal, because I find it an enjoyable standalone activity.
As you’ll have understood, I’m also very disappointed in the name change. I find that it does not reflect at all what puzzles mean to those who enjoy them. When I get 100% score on a puzzle, I don’t think “great, maybe that will help me for the next contest”. Not even always “I learned something new”. Mostly I think “whew, glad I finally got it”. So “Puzzles” was a very fitting name, because I see them as a brain teaser.
Why the change exactly? If you explain why you felt the need to change it, maybe the community can brainstorm new, more fitting names.
If, like me, you are really convinced that developing your skills through puzzle-solving:
. is a full fledged activity, which needs no other purpose than itself,
. represents a significant part of what CodinGame intends to be,
then:
. CG should not name it like it is an optional preparatory activity you practice before you get to the serious stuff
. CG should provide a proper ranking system for it
We cannot really call it “puzzles” anymore because it contains the machine learning section and also because there are puzzles in the multiplayer part (code golf, optimization games)
“solo” didn’t fell great either, that’s why we chose the word “training” which gives an idea of progression and improvement.
If you have any idea for a new wording, we’re all ears
I’m in favor of ‘Single Player’ or ‘Solo’. It provides a nice contrast to the existing Multiplayer category and doesn’t limit its content to just Puzzles, per Thibaud’s point.
In my opinion puzzles, optimisation & code golf are not essentially different: you are trying to address a problem the best way possible, and your result is compared to that of others (For a puzzle: either you solve it or not. For a code golf or optime: either you solve it or not, and with what key performance indicator).
Clash of code, bots fights and challenge are the only genuinely multiplayer activity on CG in my opinion.
Therefore i would go for:
Single Player:
1.a. Puzzles Easy -> Very Difficult
1.b. Community Puzzles
1.c. Machine Learning
1.d. Code Golf
1.e. Optimisation
Multiplayer:
2.a. Clash of code
2.b. Bot fights
2.c. Live tournaments (aka Challenges)
With a ranking for each category and each sub-activity.
@mihai_maruseac@MrAnderson Still not too fond of “single player”. It’s too much linked to gaming. While this is part of what we do (puzzles wouldn’t be so great if there wasn’t this gaming part), we want now to put an emphasis on the coding improvement part.
this also applies to multiplayer AI games and contests.
@Arinelle you didn’t propose a naming for the “solo” tab.
Indeed. I believe the most important thing is first to find the decomposition that makes the most sense. Only when we agree on a decomposition can we start to brainstorm names.
