Words with Friends question

[Russ Smith]

Did a quick search hope I didn't miss a thread.

I started playing today with a friend and quickly discovered how she "plays". She randomly puts out letters and hits play until the game accepts the word.

So she's played Jehus, Ophite, Skint, Deism etc, all words she has no clue what they mean. She even turned HOGS, into SHOGS and it somehow allowed it.

I told her if that's how she plays the game, i don't want to play. She said that's how you score points and win. She doesn't grasp that it's not at all fun since it's not testing what SHE knows.

I did a quick google and apparently this is a known complaint about the game, VERY well known. Anybody else had this issue. I told her point blank if you play that way, I won't play, it's stupid. She said you just don't like losing.

She doesn't grasp that literally a 3 year old can do what she's doing.

 

[Mathew81]

I had a guy at work who used a website that would tell him all the possible words that his letters could make. He claimed to only use it when playing random games with strangers but wouldn't use it against people he knew. But I saw him use it against me so I stopped playing.

 

[BigRedRage]

I hate when people do tiny words and cram them together limiting the board. Makes it super difficult and boring.

 

[jf-08]

Any monkey can do what she is doing. I challenge myself to see what words I know and every once in a while if I am stumped, I will throw letters up to see what sticks.

 

[Russ Smith]

Any monkey can do what she is doing. I challenge myself to see what words I know and every once in a while if I am stumped, I will throw letters up to see what sticks.

I started playing sarastically in response. I used TIT, I used simple words like say(wouldn't let me play SAYS for some reason) and stuff like that.

The current scoer is 229 her, 61 me. She keeps saying if you don't like the game resign. I keep saying why not just stop playing that way and play words you know, and she says "but that's how the game is setup, don't blame me."

Needless to say, there won't be a second game with us. The current game has been going for 46 hours. I'm intentionally slow to respond.

 

[Beaver]

Word Feud is more fun IMO. You can scramble the colored tiles. Usually I only resort to weird words when can use of the colored tiles. qi!

 

[Linderbee]

Any monkey can do what she is doing. I challenge myself to see what words I know and every once in a while if I am stumped, I will throw letters up to see what sticks.

Generally I have to resort to that when we're running out of letters.

 

[D-Dogg]

I don't care when people do that. No biggie...they are words that people at least THINK might be words.

I can't stand people who are using online word builders to create a word based on the tiles in their hands, regardless of what they think might be a word or not. That's just a bridge too far, IMO.

When I'm stuck, I'll toss up tiles and if it works, I then go look up the word so I know what it means for future use. I find that I then am using those words many more times in the future. But I'm a word nerd, anyway.

 

[Folster]

Never played, but my fiance does and she cheats by using a word builder site, one that shows her where to play the words too. I think it's incredibly lame.

I would think the game would penalize you for submitting words that did not exist. That would stop the people who just throw stuff up.

 

[Russ Smith]

I don't care when people do that. No biggie...they are words that people at least THINK might be words.

I can't stand people who are using online word builders to create a word based on the tiles in their hands, regardless of what they think might be a word or not. That's just a bridge too far, IMO.

When I'm stuck, I'll toss up tiles and if it works, I then go look up the word so I know what it means for future use. I find that I then am using those words many more times in the future. But I'm a word nerd, anyway.

Yeah but when someone plays the first 5 words by doing that, they're not actually playing IMHO.

She actually stopped doing it, the score is now much closer and it's much harder and she said she doesn't like playing now.

I don't get what fun it could be to "win" by doing every move that way.

 

[Russ Smith]

Never played, but my fiance does and she cheats by using a word builder sight, one that shows her where to play the words too. I think it's incredibly lame.

I would think the game would penalize you for submitting words that did not exist. That would stop the people who just throw stuff up.

It doesn't. The guys who made the game said they considered adding a feature that would tell one player the other one is "cheating" if they tried a set number of words like that, but they decided not to because as it gets harder the odds of someone legitimately trying words and getting labeled as cheating increase(because it's not just one word, letters touch other words and those have to be words too).

they also said they have no issue with people doing it.

There's also a board related to it I found where people can actually report cheaters to Zynga! Apparently some people actually hacked the database so they could submit ABODPERUT and the game would accept it as a word. No matter what letters they put down, the game accepts it. Baffles me someone would stoop to that but apparently tehy do, and Zynga bans them when they're reported.

 

[BigRedRage]

meh - dont play w cheaters.

 

[puckhead]

This is why I call it "Words With Turds".

 

[Russ Smith]

It actually got humorous. We agreed to stop and then late in our first game she started doing it again. So I didn't make a move for 8 hours, made one move and then she "won" by using all her letters on another word she had no clue about.

so we stared game 2, agreed to not do it, and of her first 9 words, 4 of them are clearly the same thing.

I'm 9 points behind her now with 2 letters left to use, I have to admit it would be VERY satisfying to beat her while she's doing it that way.

 

[Russ Smith]

Ha, beat her even with her still doing what she agreed not to do.

 

[puckhead]

Ha, beat her even with her still doing what she agreed not to do.

That’ll teach her to xi your shogs with skint.

 

[D-Dogg]

Yeah but when someone plays the first 5 words by doing that, they're not actually playing IMHO.

Agree.

 

[Russ Smith]

Agree.

It actually got funny I won 2 games in a row where we both largely actually played(she did the "cheat" a few times). She then won 3 in a row clearly ramping up the cheating. Two of them I just about resigned but figured what the hell I don't care if I lose to someone who's not really playing so I played it out.

But today to "teach a lesson" I went to one of those sites where you type in the board and letters and it tells what to play. I'm using "world champion" level and I currently have a large lead and she just complained "I thought you said you only play words you know", so I responded I know the meaning of every word I played.

And I do, because the site I'm using tells you the meaning of every word it recommends.

I don't intend to use it more than this one game I'm just trying to run up the score on her so that maybe she'll see my side of this and actually start playing rather than guessing.

 

[BigRedRage]

It actually got funny I won 2 games in a row where we both largely actually played(she did the "cheat" a few times). She then won 3 in a row clearly ramping up the cheating. Two of them I just about resigned but figured what the hell I don't care if I lose to someone who's not really playing so I played it out.

But today to "teach a lesson" I went to one of those sites where you type in the board and letters and it tells what to play. I'm using "world champion" level and I currently have a large lead and she just complained "I thought you said you only play words you know", so I responded I know the meaning of every word I played.

And I do, because the site I'm using tells you the meaning of every word it recommends.

I don't intend to use it more than this one game I'm just trying to run up the score on her so that maybe she'll see my side of this and actually start playing rather than guessing.

you need more friends to play against

 

[Russ Smith]

you need more friends to play against

Yeah I couldn't keep track of more than one game at a time but you're right. After this I'll play one more game my way, if she persists, I just won't play with her anymore.

It's quite funny it's taking her longer on each move now because she's so far behind she's trying every possible combination of big word scores.

She makes a move and a minute later I counter with one that gets big points would love to see her face.

it's a one time message from me, can you actually now see why I say this isn't fun the way you play.

 

[Bodha]

WAY late to this thread, but IDC. I love words with friends.


I dont understand the problem. It should be easy to stomp her. Shes just going random while you are being strategic.

For example:

She just goes through letters till she stumbles upon one that works.

Possibly the word is "At"

whereas you, with the same letters, could have nailed "Regulatory".


If its just that you want better competition, then it looks like you should go elsewhere. Not to insult your friend, but the game is pretty simple. Why does she even have to resort to randoming letters to find words.

 

[Russ Smith]

So we recently started playing again, I won 3 games in a row, she won the next 9 all by doing the same stupid forcing of words.

Last 5 words in todays game were MYSID, AJIVA, LOUPE, NGWEE and ZEES. She also used ETNA which she said was a company name(it's actually AETNA and WWF won't take AETNA). I finally concluded she was not only forcing words, she had a cheat program because 3 of the words came so quickly back after I played she couldn't possibly have been trying letter combinations, she clearly was on one of those cheat sites.

NGWEE is apparently a denomination of money in Zambia, she's not from Zambia.

So I questioned the use of the word AJIVA and she said it was an inanimate object and I replied "so is bull&*#%" and then quit the game.

The funny thing is over the last 2 years she has told me many times how she'll be playing a game against some random opponent and they just quit, or they send her a message complaining she's cheating and then quit. You'd think after having someone she actually knows tell her to stop doing it to the point where we actually stopped playing for well over a year, she'd get the hint.

I may just uninstall it the free version is so buggy anyways it kept freezing my phone.

I'm not sure that there is a solution, the game is a terrific game except IMO it has a very fatal flaw in that it allows you to just put up BS words like that. it's almost like that tv game Weakest Link where the fatal flaw in the game was all the crappy players could just vote out the good players and make it easier, even though they got less money by doing so. It created the incentive to keep the weakest links which was the exact opposite of the point of the game.

I have talked to several people at work about the game they all say the same thing they stopped playing it because of that issue.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

Unless they came from the scrabble world, if you ever see words like MYSID, AJIVA, LOUPE, NGWEE, you know they are cheating.

 

[Russ Smith]

Unless they came from the scrabble world, if you ever see words like MYSID, AJIVA, LOUPE, NGWEE, you know they are cheating.

To be clear while I hate the "plugging" of words until it accepts one I don't consider it cheating, I consider it annoying. Now when 5 consecutive words are played that way, 2 of them so quickly it's damn near impossible they were just trying random words, then it becomes cheating and at that point I just quit the game.

Last time it happened I did some googling, it's amazing how many people openly cheat on these games. Zynga literally has a department that does nothing but investigate complaints of cheating. What gets me is we're not playing for money or anything, just for fun, and she's doing that?

But she clearly can't not play that way.

 

[Shaggy]

People are still playing this? There was an app I used that allowed me to cheat. Just add the letters I had and it would give me an array of words that would work with those letters. Bet she is using that.