Hi there! We are currently curious about a variety of topics related to Puzzles for Foldit players and getting feedback on CASP11. All replies are anonymous, so feel free to share your thoughts with us.
Right now we're looking at a number of options to address concerns raised about puzzle volume (regular puzzles, not beginner puzzles) and we do want to collect as much information from our community as possible. Please share this link with all the Foldit players you know!
Note: The survey will close on Friday, September 12 at 0900 Pacific time. (Convert to your timezone)
4 to 5 regular puzzles.
1 could be a revisit.
There were way too many puzzles. I believe that no one worked to really solve each one to their personal best as a result. I find it hard to see how sub-optimizing (do these to good, not best was a typical comment on veteran IRC chat board) will benefit CASP or science. Also, it coincided with vacation season – difficult for those who had to take time off. I'm a novice seeing my first CASP, but these issues were raised on chat by many folders far better than myself.
Better to do 3 puzzles well than try to work 7. Three seems about right. Many of us can only run 2 clients at a time. For those with access to larger computers, provide a separate link and keep it off Fold-it. That way we can say the Fold-it community provided our best effort.
I personally worked as hard as I could on all of the CASP puzzles, I did better on some than others and spent even more of my limited time on those. In many cases more experienced folders can get to a solution more quickly than a new player.
If it was vacation season in some parts of the world then that is a great opportunity to spend more time folding, if that is what you like to do, CASP only happens once every two years. Some people are very keen to fold. CASP is an international competition it is what it is.
I read most of global and veteran chat, and read all of it during CASP, the comments you mention seem to have been repeated frequently by one or two players almost to the extent of trolling, without a great deal of support from others.
I find your comment that people who, for whatever reason, have larger consumer computers and are prepared to spend time folding should not be a part of the foldit community to be quite unreasonable.
I think that many folders would find your implication that most of the foldit players didn't provide their best efforts according to their choice, ability and availability due to other commitments to be quite rude.
No one has to play any puzzle, certainly no one has to play every puzzle and many top players don't, they choose what they want to do.
Obsession with global rank and device envy serves the science less than a large number of concurrent puzzles. The foldit community has lots of players with good computers who are prepared to put the time in to play all or some of the targets because they choose to. Not all of them are in the top ranks.
Many of the players don't have good computers but don't spend all their time trolling in chat or in posts complaining about it, they get in and enjoy what they do with what they have and are valued by the community as far as I can see.
Thank you for asking us for feedback.
If you want people who are competitive about everything and you find that their results are helping science then it might be that fewer puzzles are a good way to draw them and keep them.
If you want good players who are not concerned with ranks then the number of puzzles probably won't matter much.
There are those in betweens perhaps that would like the best of both worlds. A good balance could probably be worth it if you want this type of player to stay in the game.
Whatever you do, someone will most likely find a problem with it.
Personally I know where my best ranking has been and the time and effort to stay there is too much for my liking, so I simply choose to run certain puzzles according to a reasonably set sequence and play around with my favourite types and with various strategies to see if I can come up with something different or new. [phew! was that in one sentence?]
Wouldn't it be nice to see puzzles with different combinations of contacts, ed's and so on. Hint, hint. :)
Those are good points, porkythepundit! That is a good question I may have missed:
I like to:
- attempt/finish every puzzle
- attempt/finish most puzzles
- focus on the puzzles I know I am best at
Motivations and ranks may have to be a good follow up poll. :)
Lots of good stuff to consider in this thread so far.
Volume is ok, and time allotted, too. After all, the CASP list has to be worked through. Due to work related travels up to 4 weeks per month, I only have partial time access to my calculation PC, so I cannot partake in all puzzles, but when I do, I really enjoy it, and try to parallel run at least 8, one for each cpu's.
As for approach:
I usually look for the puzzles with the shortest time left, then start with those, while I let the puzzles with more time left are running on some endless script in the background. This sometimes means I have less than 2hours for a puzzle, but that's ok, that's my lifestyle. I definitely want to attempt them all, even the beginner puzzles where I no longer get points for, just to try things out.
As for features, some of the revisits allowed older saves to be reloaded. That was fantastic. I'd like to see this also for non-revisited structures. Just reload a (partial, it will be another length) solution from another previous casp puzzle.
Explain better how to remove "low core" problems.
Also, I miss structural templates. E.g., if I'd like to emulate valinomycin-like structures, a program that shapes the strand into a torroidal or hypercube (or any other) shape, instead of trying to bend the strands into gawky shapes.
I like the pattern of 1 revisit and up to three others. I'd really appreciate contact map puzzles for one of the others when possible.
A revisit doesn't need as much time as the others, if it's going to have fewer AAs, as a note. For others, I'd kind of like to have an extra day or maybe even two days if I'm going to have to fight filters and have mutations occurring.
