tarek wrote:
I've just noticed some of the categories & rating for puzzles.
I assume that you are referring to the thread
Børges's Corner and this post in particular? Your post is probably also a result of my PM asking if you are willing to post Regular Puzzles. (Today or tomorrow I will send you another PM regarding this).
My rating and difficulty levels are just something I made up, so that other people will have an idea of the solving techniques required for a given puzzle. My goal is that Apprentice should be similar to Ruud's Tough rating. My impression is that Ruud considered X-Wing a Very Hard technique. Personally I think that it is quite difficult to spot an X-Wing in a 10 grid Clueless puzzle.
If you would like to introduce different difficulties, please feel free to do so and describe them in "tarek's corner".My personal advice is to stick with the current difficulty levels and post puzzles requiring X-Wing(s) as additional Master level puzzles, i.e. in addition to an Apprentice and a possible Novice level puzzle. If the puzzles have different solutions, in contrast to mine, I consider that an extra bonus.
Posting puzzles requiring X-Wing(s) as Master also "frees" you from the Intersections limit for Apprentice puzzles. From the feedback I have gotten to my puzzles, most of the people here do not want too difficult puzzles or Apprentice puzzles taking more than one hour to solve. My personal experience is that the number of Intersections greatly influences the time it takes to solve a puzzle, even if it requires only basic techniques for solving (N/H-Singles, Intersections and N/H-Subsets).
If you are able to make overlapping puzzles requiring only X-Wings in addition to N/H-Singles, Intersections and N/H-Subsets, I am very impressed. Personally I have a hard time making such puzzles, and I believe that this is also the experience that Jean-Christophe has made. Some people here will be very happy for (Samurai) puzzles requiring only X-Wings in addition to N/H-Singles, Intersections and N/H-Subsets.
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