The Lost Challenges discussion

R5:Team Challenge-Scavenger Hunt Feedback


Ok, here is your chance to get it all out. What did you like and what did you not like? Feel free to put out any questions, comments or concerns for this round or round 6.


What did you all think of the bonus item that was new for this round? Should we keep it? If we keep it is there any changes to it you would like to see?


Round 6 will probably start end of August and go through mid November.


I am also taking suggestions for items or categories for future rounds.

I loved the bonus item! It made this challenge all the more challenging! :)

I loved having bonus items. It added an extra punch to the challenge.

No general complaints from me either. I'm happy I signed up! I'll be looking forward to the next round :)

I liked the bonus option too. This has always been my favorite team challenge :) Thanks for all of your hard work Dawn!

Category ideas, occupations, locations, maybe a fruit and veggie category?

I also loved the bonus word - it was very useful in narrowing down book choices.

I'm in the minority I guess, but I liked the previous rounds without the bonus words better. I still had fun with the bonus words, but it felt a bit like halfway through the "competition" was already done. I liked it in the previous rounds where it was more like a race to the finish right up to the very end.

Regardless though, I love this challenge so I'll be back next round whether there's a bonus item or not! :)

I really enjoyed this round with the edition of bonus words.

Sam wrote: "I'm in the minority I guess, but I liked the previous rounds without the bonus words better. I still had fun with the bonus words, but it felt a bit like halfway through the "competition" was alrea..."

What if the bonus words weren't worth as much? If they were half points instead?

This was my first round so I am fine either with or without the bonus rounds. I will definitely plan again. Dawn, thanks for all of your hard work!

I was thinking, what if the first team to claim all the items gets bonus points. That way even if they didn't get all the bonus points they still might have a chance to win.

I did like the bonus words this round but I would have to agree with Sam in that it does feel a bit like the only teams in the running to win are the ones that managed to get the most bonus points. So I would prefer it if it was maybe worth less.

This is still my favourite team challenge so I'll definitely be back for another round. Thanks Dawn for all your hard work.

I think it might be better if the bonus word was worth one point, and it was an all-or-nothing thing where you only get it if the whole team finishes. Otherwise it seems like a few teams pulled ahead with 3 points a week in the first couple of weeks, and those teams stayed on top for the whole challenge.

But I'm happy with however it's done for the next round, as long as there's a next round! :P Thanks for all your hard work, Dawn!

Jennifer ♔Princess Penguin♔ wrote: "I was thinking, what if the first team to claim all the items gets bonus points. That way even if they didn't get all the bonus points they still might have a chance to win."

Can you explain more?

My goal with the bonus was to get more people to finish in the week and not make teams wait for their points. Kind of it was bonus points for finishing on time, it was just tied to an item to make it fun.

So it is the teams that consistently read in the week that will have the highest points. But there is always 2nd and 3rd place.

The bonus item definitely got me reading faster, and I liked that aspect of it. I think it really is mostly the points. Hopefully this makes sense, but it seems like the teams that got the bonus points at the beginning, even if they missed a bonus or two later on, were still ahead overall over a team that missed the same number of bonus words but at the very beginning. I'm sure a lot of that had to do with Mr. R's word choices, but it seems like those first maybe 2 or 3 weeks made for a pretty big gap in the team points, so there wasn't a chance of catching up even if your team got maximum points in the later weeks.

I hope that makes sense and doesn't sound like I'm whining! LOL I suck at actually putting my thoughts down in a coherent way.

Dawn (Kat N Hat) wrote: "Jennifer ♔Princess Penguin♔ wrote: "I was thinking, what if the first team to claim all the items gets bonus points. That way even if they didn't get all the bonus points they still might have a ch..."

Let's say Team 1 claims all the items first but only has 60 points because they missed a couple bonus items and Team 2 comes in second but they have 62 points because they didn't miss any bonus items. Team 1 would get, let's say, 3 bonus points as a reward for being first so they would have a total of 63 points and win the game.

I don't know if this would be of any help but it would give teams that weren't able to get all the bonus points a chance to win.

So Jennifer you think it should still be a first to finish regardless of points? Or would the 3 point bonus for being first to finish be a predetermined number? So if team 2 actually had 64 points they wouldn't win even though they were higher than team 1 after the bonus?

Due to the nature of the game and the random factor impacting that some people had to find more items twice some teams are going to pull ahead and won't always be in the running for the win at the same time as others.

Just for discussion sake, what if it was first team to 50 points regardless if they were item points or bonus points? Or if we only do 1 bonus point per week then 45 points? That way it is a work to get the most items quickly and the bonuses do help you win but the other items are still a key factor.

Dawn (Kat N Hat) wrote: "So Jennifer you think it should still be a first to finish regardless of points? Or would the 3 point bonus for being first to finish be a predetermined number? So if team 2 actually had 64 points ..."

Not necessarily the first to finish...if team 1 only had 56 points they would still get the 3 points but team 2 would win because they have 62 points.

I actually was one that wasn't very fond of the bonus points. I think this may have to do with what others have been saying where you felt like the game was over since it started. It especially was hard for those that had something happen in real life that prevented them from finishing their book in a week. I actually liked the pre-bonus point games. I think it worked better for those that had more stuff going on and prevented them from finishing their books in time. Maybe the half points would work. Or maybe only if the whole team finished would you get an extra point or maybe half point.

If the game lasts to long then I think that a point cap would work great.

I do love this game I just wasn't very fond of the new bonus point system. I think this was because if I didn't finish the book within the week I felt like I was letting my team down. Also shortly after this game started a lot of stuff happened with me at work making it more complicated to finish the book in the week.

Dawn I don't know if it is possible or not but I would like to see some kind of special item bonus that people could earn maybe 1 per person per round that they could use for any item that they are missing to fill in some item that Mr. R. hasn't been so nice about. I know I have personally experienced in previous rounds the frustration of something in the same category called repeatedly so that I can't fill in the one spot I need. That would probably be a one time only super bonus in the last couple of weeks of the round or something. Maybe it could be something that only happens if the team as a whole has earned the bonus word points for say 6 weeks.

Clear as mud?

Sheila wrote: "Dawn I don't know if it is possible or not but I would like to see some kind of special item bonus that people could earn maybe 1 per person per round that they could use for any item that they are..."

Hmmmmmm..... I think I like your suggestion. I really like that it is the luck of the draw (like a bingo game) where at the end not everyone has a chance. But I too know how frustrating it is to not get all your items. I don't like just giving a freebie, but the team earning a freebie has potential.

I had fun this round, even though there was a time or two I had issued with the bonus point. I kind of like and dislike. It pushes the team to read faster and get the points, but one slip and it doesn't matter if the whole team but one person read their books in time.

Now, following Sheila's idea about the "freebie". Let's say one team member needs one item for the team to finish. What if the whole team read that item? After everybody read their books, the team would pick a book to read with that item. It could be the same book, or something like that.

I liked the bonus, but did feel like I was letting the team down when I couldn't find it, or couldn't get everything posted by Thursday night/early Fri morning.

And one thing I noticed of the Rapid Readers Scavenger Hunt vs. Team Hunt- with Rapid Readers, if you had already started a book, but only 'look' for your items from that moment on, you could count it. But (correct me if I'm wrong) you can't count a book for the Team Hunt unless it was read, in entirety, during/after the week it was called. Although, that could also be because the Team Hunt requires only ONE book, and the rapid readers you could use as many as you want to get the list each week. I can see the reasoning behind it, but it's frustrating at times.

I don't like 'down time', and always have a book going. If I started something Thursday night, then I was screwed from using anything out of it. Or, like with audiobooks, I tend to take a little longer getting through them.

I don't think I'm making sense anymore... so I'll just stop. ☺

lol, Alana you were making sense, I've been in the same boat on Thursday nights.

So I am getting that we like the bonus but not so much the time constraint of only 1 week. (Which was kind of the point to the bonus to get everyone to finish in the week. )

I liked having more freedom with finding items as I could each week, but felt like I had to rush to finish my book on time. I do the most of my reading on the weekends. So I really didn't get to enjoy any of the books that I read. And there were times when I had a book that had an item I could claim but it was called and I couldn't claim it.

1. If there was a way to change to days between when the items were called and when they had to claimed. Maybe Monday to Sunday night to give people the weekend to finish the book before the next is called. Sometimes it takes a while to even find a book before starting it.

2 Maybe when items are called, give an option of maybe half points. For example: if you called mouse (please don't use that one) if the person can find mouse twice in that book, claim it as the called item and again for a half point that fulfills the requirements of the competition.

Just a suggestion. Not sure if that makes any sense.

I did like the idea for the first entire team to claim the item of the week would get a bonus point.

Nothing y'all can do, but AT&T really threw a whole box of wrenches into my posting this week. Evil, evil AT&T

Alana ~ The Book Pimp wrote: "Nothing y'all can do, but AT&T really threw a whole box of wrenches into my posting this week. Evil, evil AT&T"

There were several internet issues through out this whole round. Grrrrr.

Thanks Dawn for all your efforts so we can enjoy this great game. Will you be hosting another one after the holidays?

Yes, look for sign ups sometime in January.

Yay! I'll have to put a reminder in my date book to look for the next round in 2014