The "tactics trainer" is demoralizing :(

I am on the verge of going back to my books. The way tactics scores your wins and penalizes your mistakes discourages me every time. And I often end up without any idea what their idea of a 'winning' move has accomplished. It looks more and more like a waste of good time to me.

Yes, often it is debatable which move is the 'winning' move. And the speed is too fast. One is penalized for being thorough, examining the board carefully with an eye to the entire game - how it got this way and where it is going. 

The web version is pretty fair, same with iPhone app.  Playing it on Android phone is definitely demoralizing.

The scoring on the tactics trainer has been changing wildly.

A few weeks back, I could get (IIRC) up to 21 points to solve a puzzle and the the penalty for an incorrect solution was just a couple points. My rating got over 2000.

More recently, the scoring has gotten strict, even punitive. To solve a puzzle at my own rating I would gain  9 points, to fail to solve would cost 11 points.

Just this morning, I failed to solve a puzzle on first attempt that was rated 98 points lower and lost 12 points. The next puzzle was rated up 137 points and I gained 10 for solving.

if you solve half of your puzzles, your rating will drop. It appears that the tactics trainer is now geared for the dedicated and for those who thrive on pain.

I've found that the most recent tweaks seem to be pretty decent.

A little over a week ago the algorithm gave around 75% of the tactics below your current rating, with almost 50% 400 or more points below. Last week there appeared to have been changes. I still got around 60% below my rating but the number 400 below improved a lot and was offset by the ones 400 above.

My rating went up 187 points in that time.

I'll see this week if they dialed it back again. @Cdr_Bond, most of my tactics are done on Android. I haven't seen a difference between it and the site.

I like to screenshot the problems in TT and then set them up on a physical board to solve them. When I am ready, I open the app back up and enter my solution. Most of my solves are in 5 seconds or so which is why my TT rating is over 2300.  I still get plenty wrong and lose points but overall I gain more than I lose. It’s nice because the puzzles get harder and I have to exercise my brain to its chess limits without the stress of the clock. They may fix this clock loophole in the future but I hope not because it has really helped my OTB chess and it makes the TT much more enjoyable and useful for me.

The puzzles I find infuriating are the ones where my move gives a +9.75 evaluation but I get it wrong because I missed a mate in 4. Those doozies start showing up occasionally around 2250.