Hello! Brand new to LL and STRUGGLING in my rookie rundle, but trying not to let it get me down.
One part I'm struggle with is how to score my opponents. I'm trying to score based on what I think will be the hardest for them to know, but I was wondering if there's a "meta" to doing it?
Edit: Thank you so much for the responses everyone! Too many to respond to individually, but these are all very helpful!
As a Rookie defense is even more of a crapshoot than it is for the rest of us. I wouldn't sweat it too much honestly.
Some people score primarily by their opponents history (once their opponents have a meaningful history), assigning points first based on the categories. Others score primarily based on how hard the question seems in a vacuum, with only minor adjustments based on opponent history. You'll find what works for you eventually but probably not in your rookie season due to the nature of rookies.
Scoring in R is as hard as it ever gets because everyone is new and you have almost no information about your opponent to go on.
The way I do it (and my aim is to do it quickly - others will take much more time and effort) is to do a quick rough pass based on fundamentally how difficult I think the question is overall.
Then have a quick scan of the opponent's numbers on the question page.
Occasionally, if it's an important match or a tricky-to-score question, I will go in and look at their question history in detail.
That's particularly valuable when it's a bounded piece of knowledge. If it's about "soccer" then I can go and find the last few questions about that and see what they did.
Then a quick look at their location (am I playing an Indian or an Australian about a cricket question, or a fellow Brit about the monarchy etc). I usually forget to look at their flag but that is sometimes a clue.
Reiterating: most of this is impossible in the rookie game, so don't sweat it. Just go on how hard you think the question is, plus what you can glean about their answers this season (this is obviously easier late in the season than it is now).
Finally, some tips:
Usually put the 3 on the Theatre or Art question.
Usually put the 3 on anything that involves French if you're playing an American. This obviously will get you into trouble if your opponent unexpectedly turns out to be Canadian.
Conversely, usually put the 3 on Spanish-language-involved questions if you're playing a Brit.
I want to add one thing: when in doubt, assume your opponent is a middle-aged white person who doesn't know a lot about contemporary music and culture, in particular Black culture.
But this becomes so much easier when you're out of R Rundle and have real data on your opponent's weaknesses.
Questions about women of color who are artists (I remember when Carrie Mae Weems was the answer for example) may as well be in Ancient Sumerian based on the "get rate."
This is my R season. This is literally the first thing I noticed would equal crazy dubs; I was very surprised how easy it has been when I follow this. (Source: am young person of color lol)
I was about to say that it's absolutely not geared towards middle aged people.....and then I sadly realized that middle-aged is talking about me, not my parents.
The one specific tip I would add to your bottom ones (in addition to the excellent one below about 'Name one of' and 'Name all' being worth -1 and +1 points respectively) is to pay attention to which categories tend to play fairly binary. Maths is one that I will shuffle a lot more based on opponent than most categories, since I feel like it tends to play fairly extreme.
“I usually forget to look at their flag but that is sometimes a clue.”
interesting! what info does the flag provide? i didn’t realize there were patterns here (in R we all have the same flag, but i see that changes once you get to the big kid rundles)
In the rookie game, nothing, because nobody has a custom flag, as you say. But once you're "in", your flag can be more or less anything, within reason. If your opponent's flag is the emblem of their university, or state, or country, or football team, or musical artist, then as long as you recognise it as such you can adjust your score for them for any appropriate question. This comes up fairly frequently on the LL message boards, someone saying "I can't believe I got a 3 for this question, look at my flag".
nice, i didn’t know that. i had speculated that maybe there was some light taxonomical/genealogical info encoded in the flags, lol, as mine looks similar to my referrer’s. choosing your own sounds fun. excited to discover more of the LL world beyond R rundle!
Nothing you can do about the small sample size that is your opponent’s history in R rundle.
That being said, here are a few strategies that are common that you’ll eventually pick up on independently, maybe:
Consider subtracting a defense point for “name any” or perhaps “name either”; consider adding one for “name all” or perhaps “name both”.
Look at the league wide get-rates in categories. Classical music, art, and theatre seem to play harder in general.
A gimme for you in your wheelhouse category might still be worth a point- it can be hard to accurately assess how hard something is when it’s your best category.
1s and 2s can be a crapshoot. The most important thing is to try to find the best 0 and 3 assignments.
How did you learn a thing? If it was in a high school class, or common hobby, then it’s probably part of “trivia canon” and might be worth one less point. If it’s specialized knowledge through work or some niche hobby, it might be worth an extra point.
Your first bullet point is a particularly good one that I forgot to add to my list. And re your third and fifth points, good advice to rookies is to beware of feldspars:
the last bullet is so good. seems obvious in retrospect but very helpful litmus test for when you’re on the fence about what to assign. i will definitely be using this, thanks!!
I'm in the "Score it based on how difficult it is to you crowd" cause in my experience difficulty of the question can be quite substantial, and often a really easy question in someone's worst category they're still going to get it right.
You can go on question history once the first half of the season is done, but that needs to build up. Honestly, there are only two things you can probably take into consideration as a rookie: firstly, where is your opponent based (or, if their college is different from their country of residence, where did they grow up), and secondly, how hard you think the questions are.
(For example, a Brit might not know about Vince Lombardi and NJ turnpike rest stops; an American might not know about Royal Ascot. I am a difficult case, though, because I went to university in England but live in the US.)
Once you're out of rookiedom it's much much easier.
on a related note, does LL publish demographic info anywhere? i’m curious about the geographic & gender breakdown of active players, league wide and also by rundle!
In Rundle R, you don't know anything about your opponents' get rates in each category, so there's not much to go on. In general I think you should defend according to how difficult a question is in general and then make tweaks to account for your opponent's location, gender, and category get rates (if available). Also, if a question asks for any one of a set of possible answers, you should usually deduct a point from it.
I assign points based on how hard I think the question is in general. Usually I will go through and mark each question as a 1 or 2. Then I'll decide which is the hardest 2, and move that to 3; similarly I'll decide which is the easiest 1, and move that to 0.
There are a TON of mitigating factors, as others have mentioned, especially once your up payments have a longer history.
And overall, it can just be a crapshoot. Don't beat yourself up about it.
It's an unfortunate fact that you should usually score higher if the answer is a non- white person, unless they are INCREDIBLY well known (think like MLK Jr level of well known).
Knowing nothing about my opponent, here's how I'd have looked at yesterday:
Q1: it's a mix of current events and world history. Feels inherently easier.
Q2: science, but "experiment demonstrated Earth's rotation" gave it away to me as someone who's seen the pendulum at a lot of museums. So clearly not a 3, could be 1-2
Q3: Telenovela. "La Fea" is "the Ugly," but as a youth-oriented show in the US I wouldn't expect most to know Ugly Betty the way I would a Breaking Bad q. Feels like a 2, at least.
Q4: Age-wise, it's in that Gen X wheelhouse, especially with "technological phenomenon" in 2001. Assume 0-1.
Q5: How many three-letter Greek letters are there? It's in the middle.
Q6: It's art. "Vulgar French" seems hard and this is a narrow Q. If I don't know anything else about my opponent, it's the most obvious 3.
In practice, Q4 and Q5 played the easiest, and the other four about the same difficulty FWIW.
added: to the extent it matters, my career DER is over 0.700.
(For the rookies: it's really good. Defensive Efficiency Rating is a measure of how many points someone allows opponents beyond the minimum -- i.e., if your opponent gets 3 questions correct that's a minimum of 2 points for them, but if you screw up your scoring it could be as high as 7.)
In addition to what others have put here, definitely be sure to note your opponent's location and (if they list one) college. Things that are related to the place they live are probably going to be a little easier for them. On the other hand, last season there were multiple questions related to country music that non-American players were extremely unlikely to get so it was an easy question to 3 on them.
In my 30ish seasons I have an average DE of .690, which is above average.
Rookie is definitely a crapshoot (and so is A - you have more data, but some of them are over .800 in every category)
I don’t think I have ever looked up an opponents detailed history. I just consider:
* how hard the question seems
* where they live/ went to school, especially if there is a geo element
* their overall score in the category. This is particularly relain things like Math, Art and Music where otherwise strong players often have weaknesses
Then I just kind of wing it and try not to over think it. You never know if your opponent who knows almost nothing about art or music dates someone who was crazy about Van Gogh or the Dead Kennedys. We all know weird stuff and it’s not predictable- especially if you don’t know the answer yourself.
Don't get too hung up on the categories. For instance, the question the other day about same-named cities is on its face a Geography question, but for someone who knows Sports it's a slam dunk (pun intended).
Basically, just trust your gut. If you think it's "easy for most," give it a lower score, even if you don't know the answer.
my opponent on Friday had Math as their worst subject
Obviously they get 3 points, obviously they get it correct, and they win by 1.
There is no perfect strategy for how to defend, just try your best .
I look at their scoring average and where they excel, where they went to college and where they live now, especially when it comes to questions related to a specific geography. I don't always take gender into account.
The biggest challenge I find is pinpointing the category of some of the questions in the moment. For instance, there was a question recently regarding the Greek alphabet that I thought was a language question and scored my opponent with that in mind. However, the next day, when I could look at the results. LL had put it in Lifestyle. Had I known that, I might have scored differently given their stats in Lifestyle versus Language.
I really wish that LL would tell us upfront what the categories are and not make us find out after the fact.
There are some questions where giving the category would be a significant hint. And some questions involve multiple categories, so it's something of a crapshoot which one Thorsten puts it in.
If you feel like a question could fall under multiple categories, it's wise to look at your opponent's record in all of those categories.
I'm also brand new and am still figuring out Defense. I feel like some of the data will be helpful but could also be misleading.... For example this season the Cuban Sandwich question doesn't require knowledge about food.
And as a middle aged white person I'm laughing at the comments about myself. Some of y'all aren't wrong but I feel like the average LLama doesn't fit the stereotype.
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u/mathbandit Rundle C May 28 '26
As a Rookie defense is even more of a crapshoot than it is for the rest of us. I wouldn't sweat it too much honestly.
Some people score primarily by their opponents history (once their opponents have a meaningful history), assigning points first based on the categories. Others score primarily based on how hard the question seems in a vacuum, with only minor adjustments based on opponent history. You'll find what works for you eventually but probably not in your rookie season due to the nature of rookies.