Playing against the machine.

paragoon · Post by **paragoon** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 7:17 pm

This is not a good development. Maybe it's a coincidence that TV like Pointless and The Chase lend themselves to battling against the machine but it can be no fun. I'm not saying you can't win - I already have plenty of times in these games, but they're very much all or nothing, not like other games where you can take a quid or three.

Topical2009 · Post by **Topical2009** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 8:32 pm

Are the answers in Pointless dynamic (is that the right technical term?), or does the same answer always produce the same result in any given round? I haven't played enough to know, but I would certainly be quite pissed off if, say, an answer was Pointless first time it was chosen, but not the next time (or vice versa), or the computer opposition is guaranteed to pull out a miracle answer to beat me every time if it wants to.

djs · Post by **djs** » Sun Oct 27, 2013 8:37 am

Pointless answers are definately the same each time round. But there's so many different answers available for each different question.
So for example, if the question is "UK towns" - then there'll be a list of about 30 answers in the 'system', but you'll only get about 7 of them show up on screen. So the next time the same question is asked there'll be a different set of available answers show up. But apart from that, Reading will always be '25', and Maidenhead will always be '26'.
I've not done a very good job of explaining that :/

Topical2009 · Post by **Topical2009** » Sun Oct 27, 2013 10:53 am

No, that's pretty clear, thanks. And do I remember correctly that there's always at least one Pointless answer per round? Presumably when it doesn't want you to win, the only way to force it is to get that one Pointless answer for every question.

I showed a non-machine playing friend of mine how Eliminator worked once; after I'd ridden my luck to clear a board of Active Volcanoes or something similar, I felt quite pleased with myself and said "You get rounds like that which are tough to get to grips with". He looked deeply unimpressed and said "I don't know why, you've only got to learn 8 right ones for each round". It was surprisingly difficult to get through to him that it wasn't always the same 8 answers, so either I was bad at explaining or he was bad at understanding...

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Tue Oct 29, 2013 3:03 pm

The 'Pointless' game is certainly extremely controlled, I agree. It is quite entertaining but the round before the final one can pretty much knock you out at will. If djs is right that the answers are the same every time, then theoretically perhaps it could be learnt in the manner that better players than I have done with 'Eliminator', but it would be a big ask. I also don't like the dominance of modern film questions on there - no doubt chosen because they are difficult to learn and very ephemeral.

I like 'The Chase' a bit more as it's less obviously controlled.

paragoon · Post by **paragoon** » Tue Oct 29, 2013 8:46 pm

grecian wrote:The 'Pointless' game is certainly extremely controlled, I agree. It is quite entertaining but the round before the final one can pretty much knock you out at will. If djs is right that the answers are the same every time, then theoretically perhaps it could be learnt in the manner that better players than I have done with 'Eliminator', but it would be a big ask. I also don't like the dominance of modern film questions on there - no doubt chosen because they are difficult to learn and very ephemeral.

I like 'The Chase' a bit more as it's less obviously controlled.

Yes, that's true to an extent but it infuriates me when you're playing The Chase and you fluke 'Which episode of Fry And Laurie appeared before the others?" and then -guess what? - the chaser gets it right too!
With Eliminator at least there's always a tiny chance you'll get 8 correct even by guessing. Mind you, the worst one is Points Make Prizes when you're offered three 'Bonus' options (surely they should be labelled 'Bogus'?) and it cheats you into YOU'RE BARRED!! In this case there is absolutely NO CHANCE you could win your money back. Daylight robbery basically.

Just to clarify, my initial moan came from finding a machine that only had The Chase and Pointless on them.

tonkarentino · Post by **tonkarentino** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 9:16 am

paragoon wrote:Yes, that's true to an extent but it infuriates me when you're playing The Chase and you fluke 'Which episode of Fry And Laurie appeared before the others?" and then -guess what? - the chaser gets it right too!
With Eliminator at least there's always a tiny chance you'll get 8 correct even by guessing. Mind you, the worst one is Points Make Prizes when you're offered three 'Bonus' options (surely they should be labelled 'Bogus'?) and it cheats you into YOU'RE BARRED!! In this case there is absolutely NO CHANCE you could win your money back. Daylight robbery basically.

Just to clarify, my initial moan came from finding a machine that only had The Chase and Pointless on them.

I found one of these. I thought it was a massive dongle failure. A dark day if they are only putting two such games on a unit...