New Scaratings

Sorry, not much help on that one. I only wrote down the song title on that one. FWIW, we were on Gene Autry.

Luckily, I am the youngest of siblings that listened to Country as well as my long-departed Dad. I actually knew the final answer. I never listen to Country, so I got lucky.

When I finally got home, I looked through some of the old hand-me-down albums (yes albums) and seldom or never played ones. There it was.

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Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.

So 4 locations garnered over half the possible points? Great design.

Imagine the outrage if only 4 locations cracked 32k in SD, or better yet, if only 4 locations cracked 33k in Six.

BO

Design is at fault to some extent.
But content is usually the culprit.

As my buddy, who only now plays Playback occasionally because he hates the new format, said, "If these question writers were teachers, they'd look at their test and say, 'well, I guess I made this one too hard.' But I bet they (meaning the question writers) are getting off on it and looking for ways to make it even more difficult."

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

The result from Saturday night is indicative of the knowledge of older Country music among the player base. That question set was quite the challenge for me.

The game design contributes to the poor scoring but it is not the sole cause in itself.

I'm certain that both BO and spotes could design a Showdown game without pop culture questions where only 4 locations would crack 32K.

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liljol, still residing in a humble lil abode in Buzztime's Backyard, San Diego County, in The Horribly Site-Poor Golden State, California...

<--805 NTN Buzztime sites visited as of 11/13/2018...

F CUBS!!!!! FBOSOX!!!!!

FPDRES!!!!! FCHGRS!!!!!

No, the game design is pretty much (more or less) the sole cause in itself.

I pointed out in the BT Games That Need Changes thread that the final 11 questions of the game account for up to 58.5% of the total score.

If you make the Headliner topic something that the masses know quite a bit about, then the leaderboard will be filled with locations & players that get over 50% of the total points.

If you make the Headliner topic something that the masses don't know much about (as was the case this past week), then the leaderboard will be filled with locations & players that didn't get even as much as 50% of the total points.

Look at the Classic Playback scores and very rarely will you find a location (let alone a player) that hit the top 20 without earning 50% of the total score.

In contrast, it happens quite often in New Playback. It's because of the game design.

While the game design certainly accentuates the difference between the "haves" and the "have nots" in Playback, mass scoring plagues like last week are the direct result of content ignorance or indifference.

The lamest aspect of current PB is the fact that, given the exaggerated value of the headliner round, it is practically tantamount to having two final strategy questions.

Just so I understand..I'm trying to wrap my poor little mind around your argument that game design causes poor scoring and has nothing to do with choice of content or player knowledge:

I know little or nothing of country music. After reviewing the questions from last week's headliner round, I would only have 2, 3 or at most 4 right in the headliner round.

So that means that my crappy score and the crappy scores of everyone else who did poorly on the game is the sole fault of the game design and has absolutely nothing at all to do with poor content writing nor ignorance and apathy towards the subject matter chosen????

Also does that mean that my poor scores in Sports IQ and STC when I get a chance to play those games are also caused by the game design and have nothing to do with my lack of interest in basketball and college sports of any kind??

And if BT wrote a poor game of Showdown full of popular culture inanities or fifth grader level questions, that would be the game design fault as well? Or they wrote a game that only members of Mensa could answer half the questions?

A well written game content-wise can compensate for flaws in game design..and poorly written content could ruin a well designed game very easily.

IMO, the point is this. Only 4 locations garnered half the points available, I'd be willing to bet 200 locations correctly answered half the questions. From the beginning, the new format has bitch slapped every single player and location that doesn't run the last 11 Q's.

Another example, in Passport there were lots of weeks where the subject matter/destination was very obscure and the game was filled with difficult questions. In those games, how many locations garnered half the points? 200?

The new design just makes 99.9% of the players feel stupid, which normally I wouldn't have a problem with. But it's just an awful design.

BO

For the most part, yes. Now of course I'm basing this assumption on the belief that if you're playing Playback, you at least have some general knowledge of popular music trivia. I understand that some people are just playing at the bar on a Saturday night, Playback comes up, and they'll play through it. But for the most part, if you're playing a game of Playback through its entirety you probably have (or at least think you have) at least some general knowledge of music.

The fifth round of the game is only 10 questions. Yet, it's worth 22250 points.

If Player A gets the first seven questions right and misses the last three questions, that player gets 11500 points. Player A got 70% of the questions correct, yet only gets 52% of the points.

If Player B gets all the questions right except for questions #3, #6 and #9, the player gets 7000 points. Player B got 70% of the questions correct, yet only gets 31% of the points.

If we asked any teacher if a student should deserve an F or a low F for C level work, imagine the reaction we'd get from the teacher.

Now I understand that a game isn't the same thing as school...but the point BO is arguing here that it's a flawed game when very few of the players can get even as much as 50% of the score. It's primarily the fault of the game design.



I agree, in general, but because of game design of the Headliner round...this pretty much goes out the window here. The buzztime writers are smart enough (or should be smart enough) to know they can write a question that 90% or more of the players are going to get right. And conversely, they know they can write a question that as few as 10% of the players are going to get right. (It should be no lower than 20%, given that you have a 20% chance of getting the question right by guessing blindly. But they can write incorrect answer choices that they know most people will bite on, which could knock it down to as little as 10%).

If they ask a 10% type question anywhere in those final 11 questions, where they position it makes a huge difference...thanks to the game design. As I've said, it's a lot like setting the pins on a green on a golf course. They can make it very easy or they can make it extremely challenging.

If you miss a 10% type question on a standard 1000 point question in round 2 or round 3 or round 4, it's no big deal. You can easily make that up and still get over 50% of the points for the game. Likewise, if the Headliner round was a straight 10000 point round, and you only got 2, 3 or 4 of those right...it's a hit against your score but not necessarily a fatal one. You could still make up that ground in the rest of the game and still get over 50% of the points.

If you only get 2, 3 or 4 in the last 11 questions of the game, the chances are pretty good you won't get 50% (and may not even come remotely close to getting 50%) of the total possible points for the game.

To continue with your teacher/student analogy, if a student takes tests and continues to earn low scores on tests due to poor design, how soon do you think it would be before the student says "screw it, I'm never going to do well, I'm done with that class"? I haven't checked the statistics for the number of players lately, but haven't they been steadily decreasing in Playback since the introduction of the new format? Have some Playback players said, "screw it, I'm never going to do well, I'm done with that game"?

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

I can't remember the exact date of the redesign. Sometime in late 2008 or early 2009, I think.

Based on a quick review of numbers, last week's game is down by 10% from the 2007 average. Showdown is down more and it was not redesigned..and Showdown also has better content preceding and following the game.

Last week had 7,246 players. I dont know if that was unusually high, low or average. It was a UFC night, which in my area would reduce the number of possible players a little ..even though the fights hadn't started yet, it gets more difficult to get a tv

first 6 months of 2009 had 9001 players on average
Calendar year 2008 had 7968 players on average
Calendar year 2007 had 7951 players on average

And since BadBob stopped compiling data June 2009 , I don't have any more recent data.

of course, there is no way of telling how many people answered a question or two for the Player cards than then quit playing.

You bring up a very interesting point here. "Back in the day", Saturday night Playback was preceded by "Triviaoke" and "Jukebox" which were good music lead ins to the hour long Playback game. Now it is a series of 15 minute games, only one that has it's own real theme.

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

I know you know this, but it's just pointless to look at trending on player stats. The economic crash is a huge forcing agent, and completely nullifies any proper examination based on other propositions.

Let me throw a question out there for all the Playback regulars, does anybody like the redesigned version better than the original? Anybody at all?

There is no right or wrong answer, I just don't think I've heard one person say they liked it better.

BO

I do, if you exclude the Pound Round.

That said, either version is fine with me. I just enjoy answering questions about music that isn't from 1950, which I rarely get to do outside of Playback.

I hear what you are saying, but we both are aware that your answer is no.

BO

You are right. I used the same argument on the old Buzztime board to argue that bars in Illinois were losing business due to the economy rather than to the smoking ban. The economy could definitely be a major factor.

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

I'd actually like to see a combination of the old and new formats. Trade the "Pound Sand Round" for the "Jukebox" round, and get rid of the pyramid scheme in the round before the final question.

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Malort. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

I like it a little better than the old one...I'm going to sound like a broken record from my previous posts but....

Way more good trivia questions than the old game. 51 questions and most are pretty good......The old game actually had only 6 pure music trivia questions with five choices (Jukebox round). I also think all people should have to answer the same questions, not choose a category. The separator round was usually the "current events" round which meant you had to know Britney Spear's psychic's name to win the game..Nine questions of those wore me out and was worth a helluva chunk of your score...

However, as others have said so eloquently, the Headliner round almost single-handedly ruins an otherwise improved game. Several things I can pick at here..Top thing is scoring..If we miss two questions #4 and #8 or something similar, it's worse than missing about 10-15 in the other rounds. That makes no sense at all to me.. Also, it is the only premium game where you almost have to study a bit or the round can pulverize you.. Just think the folks that don't get on the website, and just show up to play, and wham, they get 34 out of 40 to start the game (pretty good), and then maybe 3 or 4 out of 10 in final round to score under 50K (assuming final question right also)..Also, poor BONZO shows up to play Pink Floyd, and gets stuck having to play Celine Dion or something similar..

My biggest pet peeve this year has been the deliberate insertion of questions with two possible right answers. Only happens in the final round, so it's not an accident..I've seen at least four and maybe five so far...I want to quit simply because of this lack of integrity, but have nothing better to do on a Saturday night

Late to this thread, I know... I rarely play Saturdays and don't think about looking here too often. Anywayyyy...

I have "Pop Memories 1890-1654" by Whitburn (I know it's not up-to-date, but 99% of my favorite music is from before 1950, anyway), and it states that four acts had hits with Jingle Jangle Jingle.

Bandleader Kay Kyser hit #1 with it in July, 1942.
Cowboy singer Gene Autry hit #14 with it in August 1942.
Bandleader Freddy Martin hit #15 with it in August 1942.
Vocal group The Merry Macs hit #4 with it in April 1944 (though they originally released it in 1942)

I have found that Ritter recorded it, but he never charted with it according to my "classic Whitburn".

He didn't write it, either. Frank Loesser and Joseph Lilley did, for a b-Western called The Forest Ranger.

I'd say the most-correct answer of the ones they gave should have been Autry, and it would have been much better to have not included Ritter among the other choices.