Shuffle's contestants

[!Tommy]

I know this thread has sorta been done but what I want to add really doesn't fit with it.

It seems like especially this season with the new shuffle format, the contestants are making silly mistakes with their lifelines. Rule number one with using Ask the Audience is NEVER say what you think the answer is. I think the last three episodes I saw, people said something like: "Well, I think the answer is C. But I want to Ask the Audience!" We all know that it can influence their decision so that's not the smartest move. Also with Ask the Audience, unless you're desperate, there are certain questions that aren't audience friendly. Questions I'd say are good questions for the audience are pop culture questions, recent events, stuff like that. Harder questions like old history or obscure questions like the social security numbers question, those just aren't good questions for them.

Now with jump the question, it's the most helpful lifeline available but some people don't use them wisely. If a question isn't audience friendly, jump it. Don't ask the audience and then jump the question. That's one of the things that makes me shake my head the most.

And now we really have to ask ourselves. How much do the contestants these days sit down and prepare for Millionaire? I don't know if it's me or what, but it seems like the primetime contestants were a lot more prepared and won a lot more money. It doesn't help that the safe havens are gone which discourages many from taking risks.

So what do you guys think? Do you think people use their lifelines foolishly and they just don't come on the show with a strategy or what?

[millionairefan28]

I believe that there should be a save haven after answering 5 questions in Round 1 correctly. I believe that what you've won after correctly answering 5 should be guaranteed. Also after correctly answering all 10 questions in Round 1, contestants should be guaranteed their bank, and not just $25,000. If nothing but one thing should change however, I believe they should have a third different lifeline. I don't understand why they'd take away double dip. I do understand taking away the expert because you'd need one for every show anyway. One double dip or 50-50 lifelife (or both) should be included during the entire gameplay. Millionaire's just not doing well this season, I believe.

[millionairefan28]

Oh and I did miss one thing. Why only give the contestants half of their bank when they walk away in Round 1? What they earn is what they earn, right?

[leimeisei]

I also don't agree with the "half the bank" rule, I think that's kinda dumb. If anything, cut the amounts in half, and once they reach round 2, just double the money in their bank. Otherwise, the true bank amount only applies if you reach round 2 which is stupid since most people don't reach it.

As far as being guaranteed their bank in round 2, I'm not sure how much I agree with that idea either. That makes the $100,000 question risk free which would result in everyone going for it which means more ppl would make it past that level. Also, if you think about it, if you make it past Round 1, then you definitely have more than $25,000 which is the max you could've had in Seasons 7-8, so you're already "ahead of the game" in a sense.

[millionairefan28]

true, but still there was never any risk in going for the 11th question in Classic Millionaire ($64,000 or $50,000)

[RyanZ]

Get ready for a large chunk of text following this relatively small one.

I never did like the half-bank thing. It means that half your bank is virtually worthless until you get to round two, and even then your bank means nothing after you answer a single question. So really, your full bank only matters for the $100,000 question, or the $250,000 if you jump the $100K. Same thing goes for $500K; you'd have to jump the previous two for your bank to matter there. Like leimeisei said, halve the values then double your bank when you reach round two.

I like the idea of a save haven after question five, but the values can be a little weird. Just to get everyone a picture, it's a minimum of $1,600 (if you answer three lowest values and jump two other questions), and a maximum of $62,000 (if you answer the five highest values). Now, you could divide that in half like you would with your bank, but that means the minimum safe haven is $800, which is less than the guaranteed amount. Of course, it's extremely unlikely that this would happen, but it's still possible.

That leads me to my next point, which also includes a fix for the problem described above. WHY are the first ten values totaling $68,600? It's as if they just threw nice-sounding numbers up there and that's just what happened to be the total. To get a nice, even number, just swap out $100 for $1,500 and you have $70,000 in total. And even better, this would fix the proposed five-question safe haven by making the minimum possible safe haven $1,500 - the value may not be a reason to celebrate, but it's of at least some use, unlike $800.

As for the bank guaranteed in round two, I'm not sure I like it either. $68,600 is a LOT to be guaranteed with. Even UK Millionaire only guarantees £50,000 (which I realize is a lot more than 68,600 dollars, but as far as local currency goes 68,600 is ridiculous). At first, I disagreed that more people getting $100,000 would be a problem, but now that I think about it, you were getting $50,000 (or $64,000) as a free guess earlier on. Now you have around that value by round two, so it'd be like if $50,000 was a safe haven in addition to $25,000. In essence, it's like they've bypassed the question - actually, they HAVE bypassed the question - and they're thrown into Q12 of the previous format in the same situation: $50,000, risking $25,000 for $50,000 more. In that respect, nothing's changed. That is, assuming that the full bank ends up somewhere around $50,000.

Maybe the contestants should get another lifeline as well, yes? With only two different lifelines, it feels like something's lacking in that department. I like the idea of a return of Double Dip, either in round two or in the proposed fifth-question safe haven (which I am totally on board with, if you haven't noticed ).

I'd like to stress, though, that even with all my ranting, I do still like Millionaire. It's not as great as it was, and of course it could do with some improvements, but it's not a bad show on it's own, just when compared to what it was.

And now to part two of my reply, which would be answering what Tommy actually asked. As far as the contestants go, it seems like they're a lot less careful in using their lifelines. I can't tell you how much I hate it when a contestant uses all three lifelines in the first two questions (at least, I believe I've seen it happen - someone correct me if it hasn't). Don't tell the audience what you think it is, then ask them, because the one's that don't know will go with you. Going even further than that, don't even ask them if it's some obscure question, unless you have no other option. If they don't know, you're going to have to jump the question, and then you've wasted the audience. I myself am bad at the pop culture questions, even if they're supposedly really easy - luckily that seems to be something the audience is great at. I know that in the Wii game, I'm always waiting to use ATA in the first tier - not encountering a pop culture question is a rare event there.

One last thing. I swear, I'm almost done. I'm past 4,000 characters here, so I understand it's a lot to go through. READ. THE TREE. BEFORE IT SHUFFLES. [/capslock] It helps a whole lot, because now you know which questions are tricky and which aren't. This eliminates the whole "I think it's this but it could be a hard question and therefore a trick!" scenario. I have to admit, it's clever on the show's part, but they DO give you help (even if only for a few seconds), so why not take it?

Krantdone.

[millionairefan28]

What really got me interested with your insight was the "hard question and therefore a trick" scenario. Do people consider the randomness of both the questions and answers? Also what isn't verified is if the question categories listed after the money values has been random-ised come in as easy to hard for those few seconds or under the dollar amounts that are already random-ised. So I wouldn't be so sure if reading the categories assuming the ones closer to the bottom are easier. So far, it's not confirmed, at least from my standpoint.

[RyanZ]

I'm pretty sure that's right. I checked a few games on WWTBAM Bored, and it seems like that, from the randomized tree, the lower questions are easier and the higher questions are harder. Here's a link to one game: wwtbambored.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31470

[millionairefan28]

Oh alright, I mean, I don't want to judge anyone, but I'd be cautious. I just never knew, but your right it looks so.

[RyanZ]

Don't worry; I wasn't completely sure until I researched it I'm just assuming, though, that it works for all games and that this isn't some sort of freak coincidence.

[millionairefan28]

If it would work for every contestant that has been on Season 9, then it should work for everybody no doubt.

[!Tommy]

Wow! I created a popular thread! ^_^

I love the idea of having a safe haven in the middle of round one. It just makes sense. I do realize that if you jump the question twice in round one, you only answer eight questions. But it still doesn't guarantee that you'll know the next questions. As for the money tree, I do watch for the top one and then after it shuffles, I look to see where it is so then I know which one is the hardest in round one. Incidently in today's episode, the man jumped over the hardest one. The category was labeled Superman and it originally started on the top of the list as being the hardest one and it shuffled into the third position. So that can help a lot too.

For lifelines, I believe a double dip or 50:50 should be added back in. Both are classic lifelines and would help add back to the classicness of the show. Off-topic for a sec, but I just don't see Regis hosting this version if it went primetime. I don't know why but it just doesn't have that classic Millionaire feel anymore.

As for only getting half the bank when you walk in round 1, I don't like that either. I had to laugh yesterday is the man who was on there jumped the first question and then got the second question wrong. He banked no money at all but still went home with $1,000. I do like that you at least walk with that if you lose but it's still not that good if you were almost to classic millionaire. Something else I don't think is fair in a way is when they do a celeberty edition, they're guaranteed so much money no matter what happened. They had one on for Alzheimers last week and they were guaranteed at least $10,000 no matter what. Is that really fair to the normal contestants?

Anyway, considering everything, I think it's a good season and the gameplay is good. It'd be better if it was tweaked and come on, bring back the hot seat! It's Millionaire's icon!

[millionairefan28]

What would really be "sky-rocketing" for everyone at Millionaire would be having the tweaked daytime Millionaire with Meredith and an hour-long Prime Time Classic Millionaire with Regis. Even if the Prime Time version isn't every day, that would be great. I think the version of Classic Millionaire should be of Season 7/8 graphics, sounds, and clock. However, my thought of the Clock Format should be run that of the UK Millionaire.

[!Tommy]

The clock didn't bother me, but only having 15 seconds to answer the first five questions is kinda hard. I mean when Millionaire first debuted, they almost always had a joke answer for choice D. I know they had a few for the 10th anniversary and when you're on the clock, it's hard to have a good laugh about it without running out of time. Didn't Regis almost cost one contestant his game because of the lack of time on the early questions?

[millionairefan28]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGKxQurtJqw
Here's the video! I'd really prefer seeing 30 seconds for the first five, 45 seconds for the second five, and 1 minute for the next four. Of course still having a combined time of 1 minute and banked time for the Million Dollar Question.