c4countdown

I don't know about anyone else, but I get quite bored of the numbers game on Countdown when contestants pick 1 large most of the time. I would say around 50%+ of them are solvable within a couple of seconds or so and I find myself fast forwarding the 30 seconds quite frequently and I feel the duration of the show gets wasted a lot because of this.

A good suggestion to remedy this for me would be that 6S, 1L, 2L, 3L and 4L can only be selected once per match, meaning that only one of these would not feature on any given show. For me this would make the numbers game a bit more appealing for viewers as hopefully there would be at least 2 taxing solves per show and it would also reward players ability to solve tougher numbers games rather than just them hoping for an easy 1L to boost up their score or to just stay a safe distance away from their opponent if they are winning by a healthy margin.

If Countdown didn't want to implement this permanently, then it might be a suggestion for just the series finals games, making those more interesting? Viewpoints anyone?

I'd prefer just adding an End Round Early feature.

I'd prefer that they scrapped numbers rounds altogether. And conundrums.

I actually like it. Would also stop 4L or 6S experts going for the same thing all the time, forcing them to adapt their game a bit too.

Originally I thought pah horrible eugh get off what are you doing why are you here but I think that was mainly because I like 4L a lot and would like all games to only have 4L as an option and for us to all live in 4 large worlds based around 4L, with 937.5 trees and 302 sidewalks, however this is actually a great idea. It would certainly make the game much more balanced and interesting, as the letters-fanatics wouldn't be able to stick with the safe-1L option (however this would probably just turn into 1L&2L for the not-so-arithmetically-confident (however obviously picking 1L/2L doesn't make you incompetent (it's just statistically an easier option (and it wouldn't really be helpful anyway, as then 2 of 0,3,4 large would then have to be picked))). Very exciting. However, if there's a game between two strong arithmeticians, wouldn't this be slightly annoying for them? Having to go with 2/1 large during the game? Especially if one is trailing by 11 before round 14 and is restricted to the two. Just a thought.

But overall I do like it

I'd rather see the 4 large be mixed in with the small numbers and the contestants don't get to pick anything. Six random numbers and a random target. Probably lessesns the chance of 4 large too much and increases the chance of 6 small though. Maybe include more than one tile of each large number? There must be a way of figuring out a decent spread that would see a decent mix of possibilities.

I make it that with just one set of large numbers in the mix, the chances of each type of game appearing are roughly:-

6 small - 28.8%
1 large - 46.1%
2 large - 21.6%
3 large - 3.4%
4 large - 0.1%

But if you introduce more than one of each large number that would change the very fabric of the numbers game too much in my opinion.

Just ditch the conundrum (except as a tie breaker), and bring in a 5th numbers game. Each show can then feature all 5 types of numbers game once each.

Actually I would prefer 15 numbers rounds but I accept that Damian is unlikely to read this and go "Of course. Why didn't we think of that earlier?"

I get the impression that a large proportion of viewers don't like the more difficult selections and mentally switch off for them, like I do when Jeremy Paxman starts reading out an art or literature question on University Challenge, or the music question comes up on Only Connect.

1L and 2L come up most often because it's what most contestants prefer. I don't think it's a problem that the frequency of each pick reflects contestants' preferences. It's a bit like apterous with the duel voting thing. I might not like Omelette numbers, but that's democracy for you.

It's an interesting idea for an apterous variant though.

I think it's quite a interesting suggestion. I don't think the problem is that the contestants are getting what they prefer (Graeme) - it's that quite a high proportion of 1-large rounds especially are complete non-events, and that's just as bad for the show (surely worse in fact) as hard games. And when you only have four numbers rounds per game, you might only be left with one or two (or none) where you have to do anything.

It's very different from flat letters rounds where the contestants spot the easy maxes. People at home are still playing along as well, and unless you find a nine or are a Countdown geek who knows from the selection that nothing longer is possible, there's always work to do for the whole 30 seconds.

But I'm not sure it's enough of a problem to warrant a change. When we had just three numbers games and one player picked two, I think it was quite (extremely) poor, but at least now each contestant has got two chances to try something different. And even with four 1-larges, it's rare for the contestants to max them all. But by also limiting the other selections as well such as 6-small and 4-large, it seems a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if the intention is to make it harder. A smaller change would be to say that each contestant can't pick the same selection twice, but even then I'm not sure I'd go with it.

You could just get rid of the 100!

Gavin Chipper wrote: ...
You could just get rid of the 100!

Or replace it with (say) 97 to make people think a bit harder - or indeed change all the four large to ones at random scattered in the range above 10, so that contestants won't know what to expect and prepare in advance.

Graeme Cole wrote:I get the impression that a large proportion of viewers don't like the more difficult selections and mentally switch off for them, like I do when Jeremy Paxman starts reading out an art or literature question on University Challenge, or the music question comes up on Only Connect.

Amen, also classical music questions which there seems to be a bias to on UC.

My two pence worth on the numbers question, it would be like taking snookering out of snooker just because it's the easier option on some shots, this could prevent players winning a frame/game.