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Competitive and Recreational

COMPETITIVE teams will have an experience consistent with past Microsoft Puzzle Hunts. Puzzle Central, however, intends to offer no hints or help to individual COMPETITIVE teams. In the past, a team stuck on a puzzle might email Puzzle Central to describe what they've tried, and Puzzle Central might offer a nudge in the right direction. For Puzzle Hunt 12, Puzzle Central does not plan to do so- COMPETITIVE teams are on their own. The answer submission database will still confirm partial answers whenever applicable, however, and for a puzzle with multiple smaller parts, teams can still submit an answer list via email and Puzzle Central will verify puzzle data. That is the only help individual COMPETITIVE teams will receive. In past years, teams that were chattier with Puzzle Central could gain an advantage over quieter teams. This year's approach will make the playing field more level in that regard.

RECREATIONAL teams will have more help available to them- in fact, they'll have more help than in any past Hunt. A hint database will be available to all RECREATIONAL teams. If a RECREATIONAL team gets stuck on a puzzle, they can request a hint from the automated site. If that hint doesn't unblock them, they can request another. And another. The hints will be structured to guide solvers in small increments, spoiling as little of the puzzle as possible with a goal of preserving as the satisfaction of solving it. However, if a team just gets fed up with a puzzle, they can email Puzzle Central and ask for the answer, and we'll provide it. In fact, Puzzle Central will answer ANY question a RECREATIONAL team asks us (although teams will be asked to use the automated system first). Our philosophy for RECREATIONAL teams is that your experience is under your control. If your team wants to see all the puzzles and breeze through the experience with lots of help, that's fine by us. If you never ask us for any hints, that's fine too. It's up to each team to decide how they want to play and what would be most fun for them.

There will be no attempt at score "fairness" across RECREATIONAL teams. There is no cost for hints. Teams earn the same score for a puzzle they solve with no hints as they do for a puzzle for which they're given the answer. Therefore, RECREATIONAL teams will not be ranked against the COMPETITIVE teams at all, and will not impact the COMPETITIVE experience in any way. RECREATIONAL teams are not eligible to "win" the Hunt. However, since they can get any hint or answer they want at any time, all RECREATIONAL teams should be able to experience the full Hunt if they so desire. Whether or not a RECREATIONAL team finishes the event is entirely up to them.

Most importantly, any COMPETITIVE team can convert to being a RECREATIONAL team at any time during the event. RECREATIONAL teams, however, cannot become COMPETITIVE. Since it's a one-way door, if a team makes that conversion during the Hunt, Puzzle Central will contact the team to verify the conversion before it goes into effect. You won't be able to switch over accidentally.

If your team has never played in a puzzle event before, or if you've finished in the bottom half of the rankings in past Hunts, you may want to register as a RECREATIONAL team. If score and rank is less important to your team than being able to make forward progress and become unblocked, you may want to be RECREATIONAL. Before the event, members of COMPETITIVE teams should discuss and come to a consensus about whether they'll consider the RECREATIONAL switch, and under what conditions. It's better to spend that time before the Hunt than to have to have the debate during the event.

Since this is the first time with this structure, we reserve the right to change these rules during the event. The most likely scenario would be deciding to offer limited help to COMPETITIVE teams if specific puzzles prove more difficult than expected. In such a case, an announcement will be made to all COMPETITIVE teams at once. We hope not to have to take that step, however, and teams should not count on it.

FAQ

What's to stop a RECREATIONAL team from passing hints or answers to a COMPETITIVE team?
The same thing that's stopped teams from colluding in the past: honor. Cheating has never been a problem before, and we don't expect that to change under this structure.

Why are you doing this? What was wrong with the old system, where teams at the back of the pack got more help than teams at the front?
The old way was subjective and fallible. Chatty teams got more help than quiet teams. One team might get rebuffed, while another team might get the same question answered just 30 minutes later-and the first team wouldn't be notified that they could now get the answer they wanted. Teams never knew what kind of help would or wouldn't be provided at any given time. Puzzle Central had to make sure they didn't affect the outcome of the event by giving help to one team and not giving comparable help to others. This new system establishes clear rules, clarified expectations, and puts control of the experience into PLAYERS' hands rather than Puzzle Central's, while maintaining fairness for those teams that care about it.

If I'm on a RECREATIONAL team and I'm not ranked, how will I know how well I did?
By how much fun you had? The emphasis for RECREATIONAL teams is on self-paced fun. You'll still know how many puzzles you solved, when you solved them, and how many puzzles you took hints for. You're free to compare your results against any other teams you care about, weighing hints using whatever metric you like. You and a rival team can make your own competition independent of the larger one.