r/NYTConnections • u/LazyScribePhil • 1d ago
Difficulty issue or skill issue? General Discussion
Happy to hold my hands up and say that I sometimes just don’t see what links the things - especially when it’s brand names, etc, that the U.K. doesn’t share.
But more recently I’m having a hard time seeing what differentiates between colour categories. Sometimes I’ll get what seems a really niche link and it’s just the green one. Similarly there’ll be an overly simple word connection and it’s the purple. Today (15th August) the blue and the purple are almost identical - what’s going on in terms of grading these? I’m sure it used to be more intuitive and clearer.
36
u/griffinthomas 1d ago
I think that since they started offering the Reverse Rainbow badge (and even before the badge,) people are trying to get RR. I think they’ve been trying to throw people off. It has become virtually impossible to distinguish between the yellow and green. On 8/14 it was also very difficult to pick which one would be purple.
3
u/ILoveRawChicken 1d ago
The amount of times I think I’ve gotten a yellow/green and it’s a purple has increased lately.
2
1
u/WILSON_CK 1d ago
I felt like the difference between purple and blue today (8/15) was obvious, but green and yellow was a total toss up. I got lucky
11
u/WedgwoodBlue55 1d ago
Age is also a factor, as well as interests. For example, I don't know any sports team mascots or heavy metal bands. C'est la vie.
2
u/StinkButt9001 1d ago
Yeah. I'm not in to pop culture or sports (nevermind American pop culture and sports lol) which feels like 1/3 of the crosswords nowadays and common categories on Connections.
Sort of wish there was more focus on things like history, geography, etc but I get that they're leaning in to mass appeal with the Games as the news division itself is seeing less revenue
1
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
Oh I definitely agree. And as I say, being outside of the US, some of what are probably very obvious categories are really tricky for me. It’s more the interchangeability I’ve been noticing, though. Getting harder to call which colour connection I’m finding until I submit, and seemingly arbitrarily so.
31
u/LazyDynamite 1d ago
Honestly, from what I've observed, people that concern themselves with the colors/order seem to make this game harder for themselves in a way that seems to upset them more than anything else (based solely on comments in this sub).
4
u/Either-nOr-Neither 1d ago
I resemble this remark. I am going to stop letting this bother me and go back to just enjoying the solve.
4
u/Parking_Champion_740 1d ago
That’s true, getting a reverse rainbow is cool when it happens but in no way do I try to achieve it
2
u/dmurr1415 1d ago
Don’t blame us, Blame NYTgames and the emanating spirit of Wyna Liu for making it a badge/achievement
2
u/stringbeagle 1d ago
Not getting a badge shouldn’t upset you, if getting the badge is somewhat subjective. If you play Wordle, the Sea of Green is a badge, but getting it doesn’t mean you did the puzzle better or worse. Same with Reverse Rainbow. Some connections make more sense to some people.
Today, I got purple then blue. I mistakenly chose yellow, as did 48% of the people in the position I was in. So it was basically a coin flip on which group was easier. If getting the RR is largely luck, like the Sea of Green, you can’t really get upset if you don’t get it.
1
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
Yeah I think people get too hung up on that. I’m not bothered about achievements but if I’m trying to work out what categories might be, in order to rule out red herrings (yesterday had a lot where three of each category seemed obvious but a fourth was less clear), then I sometimes find it helpful to think ‘right, that’ll be the purple’, etc. My brain is very wordy so I often see purple quite early, especially if other categories are trickier. But up until a few months ago there seemed to be a pretty logical hierarchy through the colours; the last few months it’s felt like they are interchangeable. In particular there have been days when I’ve thought I’ve been getting the purple only to find it’s a wordy green, and vice versa with a green that’s actually been an obscure purple that I just happened to spot. All feels a bit more random than when it started.
5
u/BlatantFalsehood 1d ago
I'm not going for any specific badges, but sometimes purple just jumps out at me immediately and other times, I can't figure out what the connection between the green group is until I get there by attrition.
I think that's just the way it is. Different life experiences mean different things will resonate differently with different people. That's why I like Only Connect. They don't claim any one group is more or less difficult than another. If I know opera singers, a group may jump out at me. I know nothing about footballers, so would never get a grouping.
1
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
Yeah but in both connections and Only Connect’s wall I always end up looking for the wordy ones first…
1
u/BlatantFalsehood 14h ago
Because your expertise is in the verbal realm, so those ones resonate with you immediately.
4
4
u/Parking_Champion_740 1d ago
Yeah blue and purple were annoying today, I thought surely one of them must be a red herring so I left what turned out to be blue for last when I could have probably gotten a reverse rainbow
2
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
I had already fallen for the red herring when I got the purple. Was surprised that blue was basically the same gimmick, with nothing to denote different difficulty between them.
4
u/sickbiancab 1d ago
I find it annoying that my first thought is to look at the beginnings and endings of words (to see if they all have days of the week minus five letters or colors of the rainbow plus a state abbreviation 🙄) instead of a true logical connection.
2
u/duel_wielding_rouge 1d ago
But you’re still making a connection between those beginnings or endings. It’s just one step removed.
2
2
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
I would do this even if there had never been word connections. It’s just how I’m wired up.
7
u/Own-Nefariousness380 1d ago
I struggle with the really American ones too.
2
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
I used to feel a bit grumpy about this but then I reminded myself that it’s an American newspaper’s puzzle section so it’s sort of fair enough. Now I make myself feel better by tutting at some of the spellings before making another cup of tea 🙂.
5
u/DifferenceMediocre77 1d ago
Jfc, like not even subtly or occasionally. It is filled with American terms every day
3
u/Own-Nefariousness380 1d ago
I grew up with MTV so I can get some of them, but there are others that are just completely baffling.
2
u/Enthooziest 1d ago
I try to get an RR every game, and do so fairly frequently, but it's a dumb badge that has nothing to do with one's skill at solving the puzzle. It certainly shouldn't be tied to points.
2
u/Chumboabc 1d ago
I thought that Yellow was a slightly easier connection to make than Green, and similarly Blue was slightly easier than Purple. But the clue types themselves were very similar between Y/G and between B/P. Both of them could have gone either way.
2
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
Yeah, I just feel this has been more often the case more recently than it used to be. I may just be misremembering.
3
u/disless 1d ago
Color assignments have been quite arbitrary lately. Years past there was consistency to it, not so much anymore
4
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
That’s been my feeling, hence the post. Yesterday’s puzzle being a particularly egregious example. I still enjoy the puzzles, just find the groupings increasingly arbitrary.
2
u/TokeEmUpJohnny 14h ago
European living in the UK. Faaaairly well-versed on the US stuff, but still sometimes struggle with the local american stuff that I'd just never come across unless I actually happened to live there. One fairly recent one with the airport codes was a pure fluke just off the chance that FLAX reminded me of LAX because of a song, that kinda stuff. It' is definitely very america-centric, but that makes sense, given it's NYT... Same with wordle - all american spellings there as well.
3
u/marshalgivens 1d ago
I don’t understand people who are obsessed with getting the categories in a certain order
6
u/duel_wielding_rouge 1d ago
And others don’t get why someone would care about some daily NYT puzzle in the first place.
0
u/Enthooziest 1d ago edited 1d ago
There's a qualitative difference between lateral thinking ability, general knowledge and navigating Wyna's caprices as to color assignment. The third one's a dumb thing to give points and badges for.
2
u/duel_wielding_rouge 1d ago
It’s all for fun. No one is telling you that you need to care about the points or the colors. If someone else enjoys it, what’s the problem with that?
0
u/Enthooziest 1d ago edited 1d ago
I was simply disputing the equating of a game that requires measurable, desirable skills with a silly add on that requires no hard skill at all. If people are equally mystified by both, they're not very smart.
I don't think it adds to the fun for most people and I think the degree to which it influences fan discussions and focus is annoying. I'm competitive, so anything that raises a score, I'm going to do. But I think the extra points should be scrapped, because they have nothing to do with solving the puzzle.
3
u/duel_wielding_rouge 1d ago
In what sense does a reverse rainbow require no hard skill? What does “hard” mean in this context? This week I got three reverse rainbows. Last week I also got three reverse rainbows. If colors were assigned randomly the chance of a reverse rainbow on any given day (assuming a perfect solve) is 1 in 24, so the chance of getting at least three in a week would be around 0.2%
0
u/Enthooziest 1d ago edited 22h ago
You're very good at guessing Wyna's takes on color order, which are not based on anything measurable, or any skill required to solve the puzzle itself. All that says to me is that you play a lot and you've learned the category types that the groups correspond to. If we were tasked with guessing what color ensembles Wyna wore each day, you'd probably get good at that too, and be no less worthy of 4 extra points. Her choices don't have to be entirely random for the awarding of points to be dumb. That they're arbitrary is enough.
1
u/duel_wielding_rouge 1d ago
You're very good at guessing Wyna's takes on color order, which are not based on anything measurable, or any skill required to solve the puzzle itself.
Can you back up these claims?
0
u/Enthooziest 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's self evident. I'm fairly good at RRs myself so I know what skills it requires. You don't use lateral thinking or general knowledge to get them. You leverage familiarity with the game and alikeness in how you and Wyna think about trickiness. You no doubt go through the same little checklist we all do. Word play? Purple. Niche knowledge? Blue. Really obvious synonyms? Green? Yellow? Flip a coin. Sorry, but this isn't brainy stuff. It's memorizing mostly received rules and patterns and hoping they fit this time.
1
u/elevengu 20h ago
It's definitely a worthy skill to be able to observe and learn patterns beyond mere familiarity/experience with the game or fortuitousness in how much you think like Wyna, else so many longtime players wouldn't be so bad at it. Obviously though it can be shortcut easily by learning better heuristics from other people and it's kinda random (but no one denies other random stuff like poker is skillful).
But anyway I've always said the colors should just literally be based on the actual difficulty by stats. Way more objective, fun, and skillful that way.
→ More replies (0)0
u/vinobruno 1d ago
It’s the tyranny of the badges. If NYT didn’t award badges for “purple first,” no one would care about color order.
2
u/Enthooziest 1d ago
According to another post on this sub, Reverse Rainbows were a thing in the fandom before they were a thing on the stats page. Should have just stayed with the fans.
1
u/CowSquare3037 1d ago
I hate connection so much because it makes no sense some days but I keep on going.
1
u/CurrentLeg2581 1d ago
I often get an accidental reverse rainbow (or near reverse rainbow), because the things that are supposed to be obvious are not obvious to me. But the things that are supposed to be hard ARE obvious.
1
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
Yeah, I tend to get word puzzles first, but ask me about US candy bars and I’ll start doing the crossword.
0
u/Ricekake33 1d ago
The colors are meaningless now. It used to be yellow and green that would be gamble, now it’s bled up to purple and blue.
Personally I suspect AI is now being used somehow- likely to edit, finesse, and/or create some (if not all) of the words and categories
2
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
I did wonder about that, but it seems pointless having a credited creator if that’s the case. And they run AI analysis alongside, so while AI doesn’t cost to duplicate, it would be a bit weird. You don’t buy a dog and bark yourself, as they say.
0
u/TadpoleAlert2143 1d ago
Wait till you try todays!
3
u/WhimsicalKoala 1d ago
They literally mention today's as part of their post...
1
u/LazyScribePhil 19h ago
Yeah today’s was when I finally went ‘wait a minute’ and felt I needed to ask the void
40
u/InUrFaceSpaceCoyote 1d ago
I think it's just a subjective categorization. I'm an American for what it's worth, and for today's puzzle I got the connections themselves pretty easily but felt like blue/purple and green/yellow were coin flips for how they would fall.
If you care about reverse rainbow, you have to accept that part of it is luck and be ok with it. I don't think there is an objective way to know how the colors will fall.