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Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

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Re: Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

#261

Post by IgorPartola »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #254
unfocussed_mike wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty inevitable, though; there are some letter groups in english that make that unavoidable. I use this (the second table). https://www3.nd.edu/~busiforc/handouts/cryptography/letterfr... I memorised STARE/TASER, UNLID, CHOMP (all the letters with more than 3% incidence, in a word order with a good letter distribution close enough to the statistical one, and some useful letter groups) and the remaining significant…

I keep in mind that OTHER NAILS contains the most common letters, but I play in hard mode and don't use either of those as a start word. My second guesses onwards are made up of clues shown and letters from those two words. I don't understand the fun in playing easy mode and laying down words just to eliminate letters. I see a lot of people saying that it guarantees them a win in 4 moves, but once I adopted the above…

I typically start with READY or STEAD or STEAM. NAILS is a good one!

Re: Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

#262

Post by ehsankia »

whatarethembits wrote: post #229
dralley wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also why I strongly prefer the HBO release model to the Netflix model.

Strongly disagree on this assertion. Each to their own, so I'm not going to pretend that we're having an objective discussion here to start with :P. Personally the wordle model works for, something like wordle, but doesn't extend much further. I lose interest in a story fairly quickly if slowly drip fed over weeks and months. As a result I have watched FAR more shows after Netflix model than before it; I suspect I'm…

To be fair there's two things at play here. On the one hand, I agree it may be more enjoyable for you to watch it all at your own pace. On the other hand, I think it's objectively true that the HBO/Disney model does more to keep a show in the headlines and the cultural pulse. Look how shows like WandaVision dominated Twitter every week for 2 months. The only two shows that have managed to have staying power on Netflix were Tiger King and Squid game.

Re: Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

#263

Post by ehsankia »

Mogzol wrote: post #127
ehsankia wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's entirely true. Many have managed to create alternatives that have gotten serious traction. There's a few I've been consistently playing for a week and honestly enjoying more than Wordle itself. I've been playing Quordle, and sometimes it's more insane alternatives [1] [2]. I've also really been enjoying Semantle [3], it's probably one of my favorite and most unique ones. There's other ones that are…

I've really been enjoying Quordle. When I first saw it I thought it was just another clone with an interesting gimmick, but something about it just works so well, it's really fun to play. Going back to the original Wordle almost seems boring afterwards.

It's also one of the rare offshoots that actually iterates on the UX experience and improves on it. I like being able to see if a word exists without pressing enter for example.

Re: Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

#264

Post by ehsankia »

sedatk wrote: post #155
ehsankia wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's entirely true. Many have managed to create alternatives that have gotten serious traction. There's a few I've been consistently playing for a week and honestly enjoying more than Wordle itself. I've been playing Quordle, and sometimes it's more insane alternatives [1] [2]. I've also really been enjoying Semantle [3], it's probably one of my favorite and most unique ones. There's other ones that are…

Mastermind and alike have existed in many different forms over decades. None of them became as popular as Wordle, not even close. It's been mediocre and outdated for a long time. But, Wordle has features that makes it unique, welcoming, and viral. The alternatives you quote aren't even close. That doesn't mean none of them can catch up with Wordle. I was saying that most of them was getting it wrong (like removing da…

The ones I named all keep the daily limit and don't have ads/signup. I don't think they're overly hard or convoluted either.

Re: Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

#265

Post by unfocussed_mike »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #254
unfocussed_mike wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty inevitable, though; there are some letter groups in english that make that unavoidable. I use this (the second table). https://www3.nd.edu/~busiforc/handouts/cryptography/letterfr... I memorised STARE/TASER, UNLID, CHOMP (all the letters with more than 3% incidence, in a word order with a good letter distribution close enough to the statistical one, and some useful letter groups) and the remaining significant…

I keep in mind that OTHER NAILS contains the most common letters, but I play in hard mode and don't use either of those as a start word. My second guesses onwards are made up of clues shown and letters from those two words. I don't understand the fun in playing easy mode and laying down words just to eliminate letters. I see a lot of people saying that it guarantees them a win in 4 moves, but once I adopted the above…

I don't play in hard mode, still -- I enjoy the flexibility of solving it both ways.

But I do use a start word and as a rule I will try to reuse all the placed letters if I get a single green.

Mind you, I keep frustrating myself because the redirect from powerlanguage.co.uk to the nytimes.com domain is in my browser history and if you accidentally use it again it destroys your stats. Which is fine today of course because I tried to solve it at 5am and didn't get it ;-) but still.

Eventually I will lose interest. Not sure when. A friend of mine pointed me at Sedecordle and I was like, no, not getting into that, and then there I am, addicted to it.

Re: Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

#266

Post by unfocussed_mike »

sloucher wrote: post #227
IgorPartola wrote: post #196

What has been driving me a little nuts about it is the amount of luck involved with getting the word in a few tries. I can reliably get the word in 4 tries give or take. But when you hit something equivalent to *AR you can guess BAR, CAR, PAR, MAR, TAR, JAR, FAR, etc. The number of times I got 4 out of 5 letters on the second try just to finally get the word on the 5th or 6th try feels like I am cheated of a victory.

I started playing an Wordle-like app to get around the one-per-day limitation (I know, sue me), and played probably dozens of rounds per day. I ended up with a simple strategy of always starting with the same 3 words: LAUGH, DIRTY, JOKES which cover all the vowels (and y) and put an S at the end where it's most likely to be found. Generally I can "waste" the first 3 guesses on those words and still find the solution.…

LAUGH, DIRTY, JOKES is good -- but no C/P/M/N which are all much more frequent than G/J/K/Y.

In my experience, Y is rarely difficult to place; it's almost always obvious when you're going to need it.

And you rarely need to think about J at all -- like with Q and Z, it's usually obvious when you need it. (Not many five letter english words have J anywhere apart from the first letter, and the few that do mostly have it in the second, like EJECT, or uncommonly the third, like MAJOR, though it might be more common in loanwords like BIJOU I guess).

Re: Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

#267

Post by unfocussed_mike »

hashmush wrote: post #198
IgorPartola wrote: post #196

What has been driving me a little nuts about it is the amount of luck involved with getting the word in a few tries. I can reliably get the word in 4 tries give or take. But when you hit something equivalent to *AR you can guess BAR, CAR, PAR, MAR, TAR, JAR, FAR, etc. The number of times I got 4 out of 5 letters on the second try just to finally get the word on the 5th or 6th try feels like I am cheated of a victory.

You could use one guess of BCP to gain more information. That'd eliminate 3-4 out of 7 words in your example with the tradeoffs that you won't win with that guess in particular, but it's better on average

I agree that choosing a word that contains as many high frequency letters as possible to eliminate them is a good strategy.

Side note on P, B and C: in terms of five letter words, there are vanishingly few; maybe two or three? PUBIC is the only obvious one.

Re: Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

#268

Post by prawn »

Aardwolf wrote: post #240
prawn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been playing Quordle as well, and now find Wordle very slow and dull. I'll persist as long as my streak is active (60+ or whatever) but bail if it breaks. I play 10-20 games of Quordle a day and find it more interesting, challenging with IMO more difficult words, etc. But I can appreciate that one shared round was key to Wordle being noticed.

I've also tried Octordle now, that one's super challenging. In a harder version like that one, having a practice mode you can repeat as much as you want can be addicting on its own

I tried the Octordle one and found it easy enough but awkward to play. Quordle seems like the winning combo. The way I've found to keep Quordle really interesting is trying to win in six moves as many times as possible (got it nine times so far), and then trying to finish in seven more times than nine. That's made the Practice Mode "sticky" for me.

Re: Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

#269

Post by sloucher »

unfocussed_mike wrote: post #266
sloucher wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started playing an Wordle-like app to get around the one-per-day limitation (I know, sue me), and played probably dozens of rounds per day. I ended up with a simple strategy of always starting with the same 3 words: LAUGH, DIRTY, JOKES which cover all the vowels (and y) and put an S at the end where it's most likely to be found. Generally I can "waste" the first 3 guesses on those words and still find the solution.…

LAUGH, DIRTY, JOKES is good -- but no C/P/M/N which are all much more frequent than G/J/K/Y. In my experience, Y is rarely difficult to place; it's almost always obvious when you're going to need it. And you rarely need to think about J at all -- like with Q and Z, it's usually obvious when you need it. (Not many five letter english words have J anywhere apart from the first letter, and the few that do mostly have it…

> no C/P/M/N which are all much more frequent than G/J/K/Y

Yep, I sometimes follow up with MANIC or PANIC if I've got too few letters, to test for C/P/M/N

Re: Wordle is pretty damn smart in many subtle ways

#270

Post by sedatk »

ehsankia wrote: post #264
sedatk wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastermind and alike have existed in many different forms over decades. None of them became as popular as Wordle, not even close. It's been mediocre and outdated for a long time. But, Wordle has features that makes it unique, welcoming, and viral. The alternatives you quote aren't even close. That doesn't mean none of them can catch up with Wordle. I was saying that most of them was getting it wrong (like removing da…

The ones I named all keep the daily limit and don't have ads/signup. I don't think they're overly hard or convoluted either.

Then those aren't what I talked about.
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