Puzzle Hints

*Puzzle Goals

Working out the goal of your next move is a significant part of the game and, therefore, your chess rating.

Hello @Cloudy_MacLeod,

In https://www.chess.com/settings/gameplay, what are you choices for the following parameters?

-Show puzzle goals
-Show chat hints

There are many options. I assume you're referring to 'Show Puzzle Goals'. I realise I can turn it off. My point is that knowing the puzzle goal makes the puzzle easier than real game play. The puzzle rating is calculated from the ratings of those solving it. So anyone who has this feature turned on will skew the puzzle rating. Puzzle ratings will no longer be representative of a player's actual skill. Unless, of course, the rating calculator accounts for whether the player has it on or not. Which I doubt.

@Cloudy_MacLeod, so, did you turn it off?

Yes. But now my puzzle rating has dropped, because players who still have it switched on have an advantage that is driving the ratings of the puzzles down.

It's not driving the puzzle ratings down. It's possible some members might have a slightly higher rating, if they have the feature enabled, but it's not going to be significantly higher

Once a puzzle has a stable rating, I don't believe they are adjusted anymore, like they used to be. That hasn't been in place for a while, as far as I'm aware.

I'm just suggesting that the Puzzle Goal (hint) only appears after your first attempt. This way, your puzzle rating would better reflect what you can hope to achieve for your game rating.

And this is based on what?

My guess would be that getting a useful hint every time is worth several hundreds of rating points.

I agree I have an alt (it's approved don't ask) that is only 1600 because I'm on the app and didn't turn on puzzle goals

It's a guess but I wouldn't expect more than less than 200 difference, at max

More than less than what?

It doesn't matter, online ratings are useless anyway, and online puzzle ratings are doubly so. However, this "feature" should never have been developed. I'm almost amazed how programmers put work and effort into a feature that just makes things worse.

Difference between puzzles with hints vs without.

Not everyone wants to learn or do things the same way. Some want themes/hints, some don't and the site has options for multiple styles.

I get that Chess.com wants to attract more people to solve puzzles on their website, but if they’re going to allow hints before solving, they shouldn’t give the same rating points as to people who solve without hints. For example, I just solved a puzzle where the hint told me it was a mate—without the hint, I would never have known there was a forced mate. Yet I still got 10 rating points. The puzzle was rate 2100 and it was only one tricky knight move, which tells me majority of people solved it with no hints and failed, hence the high rating.

They should set it up so that if hints are turned on, you don’t get full rating points compared to when hints are off.