Please Change Tactics Trainer

I have no clue what happened to TT over the last week, but it's getting really ridiculous. 

I'd really prefer for TT to go back to the old system. Here are some things I really don't like:

*Ratings are massively inflated, especially amongst speed-solvers. Of course, this means that players who like to do 1000s of tactics and memorize will have even more inflation. It also encourages speed solving. Please go back to the old system.

*Specifically, the "target time" is totally ridiculous. If I'm getting problems rated 2200, I don't want a target time of like 4 seconds (where the avg. time for the problem is over a minute), where if I even look at the position to check material / tactical motifs, I now gain +1 for getting it right, and -18 for getting it wrong. 

I find the target time for higher rated problems is more reasonable though. 

*Please give the option of getting much easier and much harder problems or not. I want to go back to where all the problems I was getting was within my rating range. 

*I'm getting a lot of really low-quality tactics, and noticing, for the first time really, problems where there are multiple solutions that are objectively winning. I don't know if it's anything to do with the new system, but I feel like complaining today, and so I'll just add this. 

That is all

It will be funny to see the beginner posts though:

"I'm only rated 800 blitz, but my tactics rating is 2500. My question is will they let me play in the U2400 section or do I have to play in the open? Also what do you think my chances of winning the tournament are? I've practiced really hard, about 30 minutes a day for 1 week, so I think I'll be able to beat the GMs even though some of them are rated over 2500. Once I solved a 3000 rated tactic (it was really tricky, a mate in 3) and I wonder if most GMs could do that."

The sad thing is, 800 blitz and 2500 tactics is not so far off from the future, judging by where TT is going right now. 

I said something similar in this forum the other day:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/suggestions/tactics-trainer-new-release-feedback

Jumped from 1700-2000 because of this new change. Really confused why they thought this was a good idea.

The result is a less punishing tactics trainer and opportunity to gain rating quickly. Sounds good on the surface, but why is this a goal? The point of a rating in a tactics trainer setting is so that you can track your own progress. If a change boosts your rating by 300 points without any improvement from you then the whole point is gone.

There's been a lot of threads and comments about the recent changes and I'm sure chess.com will take that into consideration. I'm with BobbyTalparov though, TT still has a lot of great puzzles and getting the solution right is the only thing that matters, and the only way to benefit. I would personally be ok with it if they just got rid of the rating system and instead just added about a million more puzzles. Easy ones are nice for review once in a while, but the hard ones are what I'm looking for. The harder the better.  

The main thing is progress monitoring. This TT is good for monitoring your progress with tactical intuition / speed. The old rating system was much better for tracking your ability to actually figure things out.

If you treat these puzzles as if they were "slow" puzzles, then the ratings would mean nothing, and it would defeat the purpose of having ratings in the first place - to see your progress.

For instance, a few months ago I was struggling to break 2400 TT, and after a while, I managed to climb 2600+ TT. While I doubt it was really a 200 point improvement in tactical skills, I could sense that my tactics were improving, and TT reflected this (as well as my own games). 

With this new system though, it's just garbage. 

I should add that on my old account, from like 2014 or something, I did TT rather often, and it helped me improve quite a bit. 

It wasn't like it was now though. 

I do like seeing improvement. When I first reached 2000 in TT here here a couple years ago I took a screenshot lol. I've never gained hundreds of points in a few days before though, so I can see that the changes are probably not working. I also tried to get to 2400 and couldn't get past 23 something but I'm sure I could do it now which takes away from the accomplishment. But I just really like puzzles and don't care about numbers anymore. I like them almost as much or more as I like playing because it's stress free and challenging at the same time, and I feel like it's helping my game. When it comes to goals and such, I guess the rating system is important. 

 Cherub is right...but still chess.com needs to find a formula. There were several members the last three months creating threads and complain about how difficult is to climb the TT ladder since the penalty from missing difficult tactics according to their level its huge comparing to what get back solving correct. Thus...resulted to change things and create this mess!!

 Personally, i dont believe that there are tactics difficult to find or easy to find if you dont understand what you are looking for. Chess.com need to seperate tactics trainer in level of ability and actual performance. For example...i dont see the point a 1700 player to bother him self more with X ray tactics or Decoys and deflections when he misses double attacks or simple mating patterns. The analogy must be 80-20 until they manage to climb 2000. From the other optical view there is no point either for members like Cherub who already spend hours solving basic tactics to find them selfs staying behind in TT. 

The formula must be the adjustment on skill levels combined with the themes of tactics.

(edit) The party has just began : https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/love-the-updated-tactics-trainer?page=1

People dont want to get acually better, but to feel they are making a progress. Chess.com understood that and changed their policy. Who doesnt want happy costumers?

The reason people were having trouble climbing the TT ladder is because their tactical ability / calculation skills weren't improving. 

Why should they simply get to increase their tactics rating whenever they want to? Their tactics rating is based on their performance (ability to figure things out, in the old system). If they don't get better at figuring things out, their ratings will stay the same. 

I think you have it right - they just want to delude people into thinking they're improving, while their progress is going nowhere. 

All along my push has been to get Time as a measurement OUT of Tactics Training scoring and set simply as a bonus, not a detrimental component.

Tactics Training is first & foremost about situational awareness and pattern recognition.  Those that recognize it faster should be rewarded with bonus points.  Those that take time and work it out should never be penalized for doing so.

There is a strong faction within chess.com STAFF, however, that feel speed is of utmost importance.  I would agree .. except .. not in Tactical Training.  Tactics is playable by ALL levels of chess players -- Blitz, Bullet, Daily, .. the whole gamut of time constraints allowed.  Bullet & Blitz players, however, often only think of their love for SPEED and quick decisions.  They tend to discount those that prefer longer time constraints, in which speed is less of a concern compared to accuracy.

Accuracy ought to be the ONLY measurement taken to award positive or negative base points.  Speed, should be a secondary measurement, as a bonus awarded.

Why?  If Time is a prime stipulation of Tactics Training, then you encourage "best guessing", in which people who guess 'correctly' and 'quickly' inappropriately skew the Timer for said tactic in to becoming unnecessarily short.. penalizing others who later come and take the time to calculate the position properly as opposed to just guessing.  Blitz/Bullet players prefer to improve their accuracy of 'best guesses' as they are often rewarded for such behavior in their games as well.

Problem is, guessing is not accuracy at all.  I cannot stress that enough.

Tactical training is first and foremost about accuracy.  Once the STAFF here at chess.com understand that concept, the rest of the 'scoring' algorithm becomes academic.

Yeah, just reached 2800 today without even trying, when I was barely hovering around 2600 a few days ago. I could definitely get 3000+ in a few days.. that's how inflated this new system is. 

And the way to do it would be to use my intuition, and not take the time to calculate it. 

I doubt this is a conspiracy to delude anyone and I'm sure there's a logic explanation to this comedy

 No Spacebux, i dissagree while i belong to the side that can not calculate fast enough neither to recognize patterns fast.

Time is important to push you find solutions how to increase your ability to visualize the board better and recognize. Some people dont play only correnspodence daily chess...they will have to handle their time management in OTB conditions tomorrow. Have you ever tried to calculate and evaluate five different variations in six moves depth within ten minutes?

Tactics trainer is a methodigal work of pattern recognition,speed of thinking and accuracy.

It is not accident that super GM's rely on their accuracy when double checking lines. No one spends more than one and a half minute to calculate what understands.

The problem of chess.com tactics was and is that has not adjust the themes and combination of themes according to the actual player performance, thus resulting a 1500 player to try solve tactics he dont understand. No one could climb 1700 and soon everyone started calling out the scoring algorithm when the actual problem is the themes.

Give a 1600 player a tactics trainer with basic tactics like double attacks,forks,pins or skewers to solve them with speed and you will see that no one will complain anymore.

but no! Chess.com must have a variety of themes in all levels. Its the best site in the world. Who cares about methodical work?

Speed comes later, with pattern recognition and faster mental computation skills.

You must first be able to correctly breakdown a situation and calculate the position.

Time is a bonus aspect, not a primary one.

Yeah...right! Go and and play couple of times OTB finding your self spending unnecessary time to calculate and evaluate again and again the same trees , ( because of lack calculating and anticipating fast enough ) and then come back to tell us what is primary and what is bonus aspect.

Yes, but solving a tactical puzzle by brute force calculation for 20 to 40 minutes is not useful tactic training. It's in fact visualization / calculation training and not tactic training at all.

I would know, that's how I used to do tactics.

I dislike how chess.com does its tactics, but having some sort of timer is correct. Even tactic books will give you a time limit for puzzles. If you can't solve a puzzle after 5 to 10 minutes (depends on how close you're getting or if you're just randomly calculating) then you should give up and either look at the answer or set it up and move the pieces to try and solve it analysis board style.