Hello Codeforces!
Initially, here was an announcement of the first round for the fourth division. But currently, in comments there is the huge discussion of division 4 rounds in general. Honestly, I read all (almost all) comments.
I decided to replace the text of this post to match the comments better. Also, I'll write one more post separately to discuss problems. And this post will be about division 4 rounds in general.
About Div4 rounds:
I'm not afraid of a queue or servers overload: it is technical challenges and my task is to resolve them. The previous biggest rounds were not overshadowed by technical problems and judging delays, they went well. I see no reasons why something should work much worse in the rounds for Div. 4 (and if it does, then this should be fixed).
I don't think that Div. 3 rounds are too dificult. Actually, they are quite good for beginners. They are noticeably easier than Div. 2. Almost every round trusted participants solve all problems, many participants solve all without one problem. I think in general they are OK.
Now I don't like the idea to run in parallel Div. 3 and Div. 4 rounds (like we do for Div. 1 and Div. 2). Div. 3 rounds are harder to prepare and I don't think we can host them more than once per ~2 weeks. It means that such rounds will not give new contests for newcomers and grays/greens (I think Div. 3 are already interesting rounds for them to take part). But separate Div. 4 rounds will be easier to prepare (even than Div. 3) and probably making them we can offer more contests for low rated participants.
I'd like to repeat: Div. 3 and Div. 4 rounds doesn't affect the rate of Div. 1 and Div. 2 rounds. The coordinators focus only on Div. 1 and Div. 2 rounds. All Div3 (and future, if any, Div4) rounds are prepared without any help from the coordinators.
I do not think that by hosting Div. 4 rounds, we will lower the quality of problems. Now, I don't plan to use absolutely A+B level problems even for the Div. 4. I think problems of level like Div3A-Div3D are good candidates.
Thanks for your attention to this idea!
EXCITED!
KunKKa hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
This is so true. I am one of them. LOL
no you are not lol!
I hope that frequency of Div 1/2 rounds are not affected by them.
Now I started to feel locked down for real!
I like the rated rounds only. Div 2 is the best rounds.
Do we have any thing which reduces our rating below 1400 before 9th may. So that we will be rated.
Hopefully not affected. See this
At this rate we'll have div10 for negatively rated people.
I'll try to be the first participant
there are already 13 negatively rated people.
the minimun rating is -41.\Joking
Gratitude!
Regardless of whether you are a trusted participant of the ten's division or not, if your rating is less than 0, then the round will be rated for you. Lol
To qualify as a trusted participants of the tenth division, you must:
take part in at least two rated rounds (and submit at least once in each of them)
do not have a point of 50 or higher in the rating after your rating is lower than 0
Your rating is less than 0
Solving div10 questions should be interesting. Looking forward to it!
(I guess) the questions will have similar difficulty to the following sample question:
(This feels like April Fools' more than a rated div 10 lol)
B. Date
Input: no input
Output: the date of first div10 round in DDMMYYYY format.
Ngl that's too difficult for Div 10
Codeforces Round 1000(Div.10) Total:20000 Participants:10 Out of Competition:19990
Wow is this the highest upvoted comment of all time
Thus I have gotten demoted once again! Anyways thanks for the effort!
Finally a worthy opponent Div 4
XDD
Yes, of course)
See you all on Div5.
:OOOOO
When is the old Round 640 planned to be held?
300iq and writers will announce it soon.
will the contest be rated for unrated accounts?
It is written clearly that to qualify as a participant of the 4th round, you must have taken part in at least 2 rated contest! So for unrated accounts, it won't be rated.
those specifications are only to qualify as a trusted participant. anyone who rating less than 1400 the round is rated for them, but regarding whether unrated contestants will be rated or not is not clearly mentioned uptil now.
Yes, I just saw the list of participants registered for Div 4. Unrated accounts ratings are written as 0 and they are "in the competition". So it is rated for unrated accounts. Sorry for my misinterpretation.
don't bother your rating is not less than 1400 spacetime
I just got a little curious and hence asked about it :)
are you planning to make new accounts? disgusting...You should be banned from codeforces..spacetime
not at all, just got curious thats all! Don't misinterpret :)
I know you are gonna do this.. Since you are a pro at coding you will do all problems with the new account and thus you will screw the contest for green and grey coders...I will mail mike to ban you from CF
a kind request, please dont't misinterpret and don't spread hate :)
ok....dekar
I hope the round will still be at the same time of the day. It's been a long time since the last contest held at unusual time for other time zones.
I wonder if CF caught corona.
Don't worry!CF is maintaining social distancing with div1/div2 rounds.
This is the reason why we don't have Div.2 rounds as often as before.
What do you mean?
Don't worry, CF is using facial masks in logo.
Not excited
It's not april 1st anymore
I hope I can solve 3 or 4 issues in div4, div2 is too hard for me
Why not all? It will be not too hard) I wish you luck!)
I am not confident in my abilities, but I will try, thank you
But you know you are a stable pupil so this should be easy for you and you've got this!! :)
and look at yourself now bro,how do you feel? :)
Is this a joke? The site was already suffering due to cancerous div 3's and the rating inflation that they were causing and now div 4's. No words to say. I guess mike only cares about traffic on the site now.
Well it's just an experiment and maybe it will be good for beginners. We were all there at some point.
I think div 3 's are much more than enough for upsolving for beginners. Div 4 will just cause more rating inflation and all we will have are undeserved experts who reached that rank only by competing against other pupils and newbies.
You may be right but I think that inflation you're talking about will lead them to a [1400-1600] range not more so 1600+ rated members won't notice any difference
Cyans are touching CM after div3's. So i expect pupils to reach 1600-1700 easily by being in top 50(not hard)
Yeah you're right. But in those cases these cyan people are solving maybe all the problem set in-contest which is something I personally wasn't able to do yet even in Div3. It's maybe odd but I think they deserve it if they really did that
Suppose it was a div2 contest than a div3 with the exact same problems. Do you think all of them would be able to reach that rank. I dont think so. BECAUSE THERE IS REAL AND TOUGH COMPETITION THEN!
Please think carefully. People with up to 2400 rating doing div3 rounds regularly fail to FC a div3 problemset. And most of the people gaining high rating from div3 rounds are previously unrated participants (here's a little hint: if they can beat a gm, they're probably a gm). So yeah, my guess is that they can probably reach that rank...
You are absolutely right but there is a possibility that they might struggle in the future competitions. So it won't matter much I guess.
And that brings me to my next point. Many people leave after reaching a certain rank. Hence more people around that rating since they fear that their rating will fall.
The rating in codeforces is simply not relative. If after reaching a certain rank, people leave, it is their loss and that really cant be accounted for inflation then because an inactive account is not really the same as an active account. However, if someone was able to maintain their rating, they probably deserved it.
The plus side, really is that it would account for further testing and will be a good platform for beginners.
Div3 was an experiment as well.
But nobody ever bothered to show what were the outcomes of that experiment before starting a new one.
Oh the outcomes were great although it does not affect you and me right now, but for beginners which are the bigger part of this community yeah it was great.
Deleted.
Vicious Coder with vicious words! It's a good opportunity for beginners who have more to care about than their score
Rightly said. He is too bothered about other people reaching expert instead of increasing his own rating.
He couldn't see a positive side of such contest which brings more people to this world. It gives motivation to many people to try harder.
I think it's time to address the elephant in the room. If you aren't >= cyan after a month or two, you just aren't practicing hard. The people in div 4 range are either completely new or unmotivated, both of which won't be inspired to try harder by such a round. I was motivated most by wanting to be in div 1, not by having low level rounds. I think the round is fine now as it's basically another testing round, but not a good thing for the future, and div 3 is the lowest level it should go.
Competitive programming is an entertainment and possibly a sport, not a job. I, at the moment, participate in most rounds, and spend time practicing between rounds, but if someone just wants to do the occasional round for fun, and to test their skills, that is fine with me whatever level they are at.
What you said would be true in most cases. But as a programmer, we should know that there might be few corner cases. Some people might be trying hard but in wrong direction like practicing easy problem a lot. This division might give them confident that they can do easy problems and it's time to practice some hard problem. As Mike said, the number of other rounds won't be affected by this. So, I don't understand how it is harming anyone. Being optimistic, may be in future these divisions will lay a perfect and well defined path for becoming a good programmer.
2 years back, there were just 2 divisions. But did beginners then have no opportunity to practice then? Not at all. People practiced harder problems and improved themselves. If you think solving a round just filled with Div2-A's will help then i am sorry to inform you that it will not be helpful in the long run.
Yes i used harsh words but the sole reason of that is because i feel codeforces is losing its essence now and that triggers me.
I think the real purpose of CodeForces is to make us better at algorithmic thinking and prepare for ICPC / ACM. Sure, knowing a "rating" is nice. At the end of the day, the real purpose of practicing CP is "Can I solve XYZ challenging problem I haven't seen before?"
As a community, we should look at the rating system as an arbitrary benchmark someone decided to implement and don't question it too much. Instead, we should look at improving ourselves and our abilities.
1) How does a Div 4 help for ICPC?
2) There needs to be some motivation for everything in life. Rating is a motivation to do CP and there no denying that. This is analogous to being a youtube creator. Sure he likes to create and edit videos but the real motivation comes from the views and likes on the video.
1) For more experienced people, it probably doesn't. So we should ignore it and stick to our Div 1 / 2. For newbs, it probably gives them a glimpse into solving problems on a clock and some of the more basic ideas.
2) In some (e)sports, they use tournaments or races to determine relative standings. At the end of each CF contest, we can also look at how we ranked relative to the other contestants. This will be a noisy signal (much like rating), but over time it should give you a sense of progress.
How exactly do Div 4 contests cause rating inflation? The sum of participants ratings is the same after and before. The main thing that causes rating inflation is more users. But that's a good thing, because it means a higher rating means you're better than more users.
Rating inflation is such a stupid thing to worry about anyways. And if you look at the some of the top people on the website who have done this for many years, their rating has been pretty stable for the past few years anyways.
I know a lot a lot of participants who always participate and solve 0, 1, or two problems maximum and its fair enough to have there own contest also its really helpful for the newcomers to have a contest where they can see there improving after practicing
Agree. OR Div4 and Div3 should have better rating calculation formula.
Div 4 .. lets see something new rules.
Hope I it will be fun for official participates.good luck for all.
So can you not participate in this round if you are an unrated account?
You can, and your rating will change.
Seems Yes !!! I am new (unrated) here and it doesn't show me as out of competition after registering.
Really ?????
Yes! I think you can confirm that from the list of registrants.
Yay DIV 4! Its time for me to Shine
that was a great shining XD
Waiting for div10 round with a rating less than 100.
You need to start practicing really hard to be able to officially participate in it!
Ofc, you must be a legendary newbie!
legendary grandmaster newbie like me.
It's not like you can magically reduce queue times. Otherwise, Mike would have done it already.
That's exactly why he was thrown out of a window!
Absolutely Correct :)
Now, Its time to contribute to Problem setting.
Too many things are happening. :)
Welcome to new era of codeforces. Division 4.
THX Mike. I hope that the situation with difficulties of Div. 3 rounds' tasks won't repeat in Div. 4.
Reducing the difficulty of Div.3 instead seems like a much better option than a whole new division that just excludes specialists.
Agree.
Yes very true there's no point in just excluding specialists and make another division . This means if contestants keep on increasing more and more divisions will be made .We should not forget many contestants have multiple accounts .
+1000
Consider we reduce the difficulty of Div1. And the hardest problem is solved by ~100 participants. Is it good? We have the same with Div3. Now almost each round we have trusted participants who solved all the problems, tens or hundreds solve without 1 problem. Typically, all problems gradually increase in complexity. What is the reason to change it? Why do you want to remove interesting and useful problems from some official participants? This will lead to the fact that the top is determined solely by speed. What for?
My point of view that green and cyan participants have some gap in skills. Usually, you need fewer efforts/less time to prepare easier problems (at least for me). I expect that the preparation of Div4 is easy if you are a skilled writer. I believe that it will only be better if we have rounds for both very beginners and the rest of the audience. Why not? I don't have any plans to reduce the rate of Div 1-3 rounds. Actually, now I don't have plans for regular Div4. I think we need to look at the feedback, results and popularity.
You can add one more trivial problem in div3 or make it div3+4 if you want to avoid having 7-8 problems.
But the goal of Div. 3 is to allow people to advance to higher divisions. So there's no reason to compare that to top contestants in Div. 1. If a person solves all the problems in Div. 3 then they should solve problems in Div. 2. I don't see why it is an argument for adding the new division.
in a way this only affects specialist users badly, i can't see why it shouldn't be a rated contest (or simply div 3 like everyone is saying) for specialists.
The overall feedback will obviously be positive because of the amount of greys and greens in the site and since a div4 is basically a win-win situation for them.
I personally don't have a problem with div4 if the frequency of div1-3 doesn't change but I think the frequency of div1-3 will eventually go down if div4s become a regular thing.
Hi Mike,
I think you are absolutely correct, these changes should be data driven than based on some mere comments... Also I believe that its easier to come up with a div4 round, which can be used to make lower rated participants learn important tricks and techniques to become better coders.
I wish It is div 3 with less difficulty . Div 3 with less difficulty == Div 4
BTW I would like to see Div. 10 lmao tasks for people with negative rating
Why does any stupid comment of Div. 1 have +100500 rating, but specialists get too much minuses? Such of strange effects, d'you think so?
It's because there were already two comments with the same idea as yours, posted earlier than yours.
I don't read the previous comments. Is it base to blame me?
Well do you expect people to upvote you then?
No, I've just wanted to write a comment. In this case you might ignore it. Such an easy way to be honest.
It's funny to see people that put minuses on comment of random low-rate like a hamsters. Be kind :)
Ok, it was a very strange first experience of interaction with Codeforces' community...
A little typo:
this is due to almost copy and paste
This is sad. Disappointed.
Why not keep a Div 3 contest instead of making a new division and keeping a Div 4 contest?
It's exactly what starters needed (at least i did)! Really hope everything would work fine! Make Codeforces great again!
pupil too :3
What is the point of making Div4? I think that Div3 problems are simple enough.
.
I think D, E and F should be difficult. I'm Div. 1 and I almost never solve D, E, F in Div. 1 rounds :D
Let's ask Mike to create a Div 1.5 for us.
It can be a good idea! And in addition Div 2.5
Just go to any standings page and you would see a lot of greens have solved Div3 D, even some solved div3 E. What you have to know is you can solve div3 E because a lot of guys in your rating range solves that. So, it's the luck, sometimes it would favor you and sometimes not.
Yeah, but what's the point in solving more if the reason is them being easy instead of us improving.
not for everyone, some people who are new to programming needs div 4. I support cf in this Disceason if they donot reduce frequency of div 2 contests
Codeforces: good job getting high rating of 2100+! As a reward, rated rounds for you are like once every half a year now!
Just kidding, but for real, I hope div2+ rounds don't start taking 90% of the schedule now with more round types.
We never reduced the rate of Div1 and Div2 rounds because different people work on them (I'm the only common point). Since 2010 we try to have ~3 Div1/Div2 and ~3 Div2 rounds per month (sometimes we have 4+2 rounds, but it even better usually).
I hope this will be the first and last div4 contest.
Regardless of whether you are a trusted participant of the THIRD division or not, if your rating is less than 1400, then the round will be rated for you. I am sorry, but I think here is a mistake, and there must be fourth division, not third. UPD: Fixed
Ok, this is an experiment. So are users with rating above 1400 encouraged to participate out of competition to stress test the queue?
Is this only an experiment to test the queue? If so, cool, I think this is a great idea. Since it's rated, participation will be high.
Otherwise, I don't think Div.4 contests should become a thing. It's better to keep focus on the already existing divisions, instead of adding a new one and wasting time creating and testing trivial problems. Besides, I think Div.3 is good enough for beginners. At least the first three tasks are doable with little experience in programming. With Div4 we might as well copy problems from geeksforgeeks.
I don't think having a Div4 would take time away from the individuals writing other division contests. See Mike's comment here.
I also think there would be plenty of individuals to choose from to write these contests, like myself. I've prepared contests for my university countless times, where problems ranged from easier than Div3A to around the difficulty of a Div3D.
Everyone who competed in the competitions I wrote were brand new to competitive programming, and most gave very positive feedback on how they felt like they learned something new. Of course, I directed them to Codeforces so that they can continue to learn, but none of them really picked it up. Why? I'm not too sure, but having an easier division might be more inviting.
Either way, lets see the results from this experiment. If this Div4 contest pulls in new users or pulls back old users, that would be amazing for the Codeforces community. I'm interested to see what kind of data Mike is able to gather.
You do have a point, people in my school also don't keep up with CF. And talent in competitive programming involves a huge range, which could be further partitioned into more divisions. And yes, maybe new users come in with Div.4.
But I also think most of those people who "don't pick up CF" aren't too interested in competitive programming. At least the ones I know participate once or twice because they want to try something new, or they want to prepare for a tech interview, etc. Yes, some of them could have serious potential at CP, but I have to say, they're a minority.
I think codeforces is for people interested in reaching a serious level in programming competitions. So I think they "don't pick up CF" because they're not really interested enough to be persistent, disciplined, and do an effort in solving CF problems. If they want to prepare for interviews or learn basic stuff, they can go to leetcode or hackerrank, which are specifically designed for that kind of people. Codeforces should remain a platform for people that do competitive programming simply because they love it.
I agree, but does lowering the barrier for discovering a new love for CP on CF have any negative affect? Genuine question, haven't really thought about it much.
I don't think it has a negative effect. People with real interest in CP will eventually pick it up. There might be some exceptions, but I bet you if CF brings in more users like the ones I'm talking about, the following things will increase dramatically:
I think these things are more worrying than letting grays solve more than one problem a contest.
What's the rating bounds of Div2 and Div1 now? Does it remain the same?
Yes.
Is it just another test round?
I wish it was not only test)
Definitely not a good move.
Instead,the difficulty of Div3 should have been adjusted.
Can users under 1399 participate in div2 after adding div4?
Yes.
Treat it as a simpler div.3
Will the round be rated for me as I am an untrusted member?
everyone knows this is a fake account, i hate people like you, you registered 7 weeks ago and solved only 1 problem. Also one of your past comments suggest that you have already participated in div2 rounds. Even if this is your real account, how the hell you came to senses after 3 hours of the anouncement of div4 rounds. Why can't you participate with your real i.d?
Division 4, only where new users are unrated!!
nice
Wondering what would be the maximum rating of the problems in Div 4
No more than 1900?
Maybe there'll be much more people killing all the problems
Let's see.
Maybe 1000 xD
I think it would be less than 1400.
I'd actually do the exact opposite to stress-test the system, if I understood the sentence correctly.
This is done to decrease the load, not to stress test the system.
But since the motivations for this post was to make sure everything works fine before we have another Div1/Div2 round, is it not better to actually stress test the system?
To see if the fixes worked correctly?
I think that was an explanation for this scheduling (moving div1+2 round and having a div4 now), not for the whole existence of div4.
Well yes, but actually no
Why not just make div3 easier?
WTH!!?? just like ABC contests at Atcoder. i cant even imagine the round easier than div3 "/
MikeMirzayanov Will the unrated users also be rated ?
They will be rated. My friend new on codeforces just registered and is not registered out of competition.
i have been waiting for a long time sir :">
It will be "Testing Round", but with 5-8 problems)
I am very excited as a begginer programmer, I don't get why people is so mad over this, and also you all are getting mad over Mike, but what he does, is just thinking for all. If there will be any future Div 4, how does that affect you Div 3 / 2 / 1 participants, he said that there will be no less Div 3 / 2 / 1 rounds. You should really reconsider your way of thinking over Div 4.
If this Div 4 project works, can we add a lower bound or threshold rating for Div 2 participation like in Div 1 ? I think this alone would resolve long queue issues due to congested servers. MikeMirzayanov
Usually long queues only happen if there're something wrong with the jugding system.
Low-rated people can hardly solve Div.2 C. (Mostly) Div.2 A and B are light problems.They don't take up much judging resources.So they don't affect much.
So I don't think it's necessary to set threshold for Div.2 .
I'm not sure but I think queues are not problem-independent so Heavy traffic on A might also affect submissions on other problem.
Maybe I'm wrong though if you have more information please share it
Problem A can be solved in ~5 min for high-rated participants, and for low-rated, it takes up about 15~30 min.(Div.2 A isn't very easy for them) Then, they won't collide with each other,which reduces the instant load of the servers.
What's more, usually there's only 2~3 pretests for Div.2 A , so judging will be faster.
So the queue will not get crowded (Though if you put A+B with 100 pretests at Div.2 A, judging system will blow up)
I wouldn't estimate the time it takes for a beginner to solve a problem you see it can take him between 10 and 100 minutes. The mere fact of having like 10k extra submissions per contest being transferred somewhere else would be good for serious participants
Most of these submissions distribute evenly in the 120-min contest, so they don't affect too much.
I don't think situation will change very much if we block these submissions.
And high-rated participants would solve ABC in 15-30 minutes.
About 6-8k people solve Div 2 A-B, but not Div 2 C, lots of them are cyan or grey or unrated(lets say 6k extra submissions for A and 4k for B), its just too many even if the problems are light.
Usually the number of Participants solved the problem(described as solved below) increases fast at the beginning of the contest, then slowly at the middle/ending.
Participants with high rating will solve A and B in 5~10 min , so solved increases fast.The Low-rated solve them in 30~120 min, evenly distributed, so solved increase slowly.
Although 6~8K submissions seem a lot, actually they are not too many because most of them distributed evenly in the 120-minute contest.
That's my opinion.
It would be one submission every second in the best case, its still too much. Just end it here.
Alright.Maybe we can discuss it after the first Div.4 contest :D
I don't think Div 4 contests would become frequent, but having lower bound for Div 2 is a great solution(i also came up with the same idea then i saw you comment)
Future ~~~~~ LGM : DIV1 GM : DIV2. MASTER : DIV3 CM : DIV4 EXPERT : DIV5 SPECIALIST : DIV6 PUPIL : DIV7 NEWBIE : DIV8 -ve RATING : DIV9 ~~~~
And unrated: DIV.10!
congratulation to all trusted participant
Exactly what I needed to get started, I'm a complete noo00b lol
codeforces starting rate is 1500. The round is rated for 1399 or less. You won't be rated.
Edit: I think it will be rated(Not sure though). There are not a lot of details though(A bit confusing).
lmao
Please clarify if it will be rated for unrated users
It will be rated. No worries.
I hope after everything is sorted out have we have frequent contests! Best thing during this time
Lol
MY SON
uh, I guess its speed-forces round.
"In typical div.2 rounds, gray and green participants rarely can solve more than 2 problems", it hurt me deep though it may true.
i am also hurted though i can solve 3 or 4 problem rarely
Greens like us have to be above rank 5200 to increase rating (lot of contestants in Corona time).We get close to solve C, but can't make it in contest time. Hope in future we'll improve and solve upto C regularly.
Or you should solve problems A and B very quickly and try to hack people if you can.
Like seriously, have you seen any standings page. In every div2 round, at least 50 people in your rating range does better than me. How they do that? They got the luck and you don't. You would get luck also. But, you can solve div2 D, that didn't kicked on your head during contest time.
I know its not a good place to ask it but i don't know where to ask, how to become a tester, specially for this special round?
A meme became reality...
[deleted]
Very excited!
How about running div3 and div4 together like div1 and div2 happens...
Can you also tell in which division shall specialists participate?
Div 3 + Div 2.
div5 rounds when?
I see a lot of people commenting why div4 is a bad idea. In some way I agree to those ideas, but to share my opinion — why is this so bad afterall?
People have already complained why div3 is a bad idea, and yet I think it had some good effects for beginners who just started solving these problems.
I don't know if beginners feel current div3 challenging, but unlike Atcoder Beginner Contests, I think 1200-rated people will feel third or even second problem in Div3 challenging. For motivation and improvements, why shouldn't codeforces offer rounds for them?
However, I think there might be some issues. The biggest concern is of course less Div1 rounds, but as Mike already said, he promised it will not happen (since different people work on those). For longer queue issue — I think there should be some rating lower bound for Div2 if Div4 will continue. 30,000 people on one round, rating 0 to 2100 is too much for problemsetters to think about. Generally I think problemsetting will be easier if setters know their 'targets' more accurately.
Also, 1400-bound is kinda problematic that 'new users' are not rated in lowest-division contests. Currently codeforces is too big to keep this policy — I guess most of new participant's skill level is lower than 1500, but they have to be frustrated in div2 or div3 to compete in their correct positions.
For all these problems, isn't base rating 1500 a bit too high? I know that it is difficult (or maybe impossible) to change this, but if I remember correct 1500 is somewhere near median. Is this intended? I haven't done the math, but I'm almost certain that high base rating is giving vastly more rating inflation.
Again, I haven't competed a lot like other people who already made their good point. My opinions might be wrong...It will be great if some good, reasonable discussion leads to improving this great community.
A lot of new accounts turn out to be high-rated participants creating new accounts just to score well in lower divs and ruin the fun for actually lower rated contestants.
Oh. This is actually what I missed... Seems like a fair point. Fighting against multiple account using is much bigger issue in some sense.
But it is still sad that there is a obvious concern (Rating inflation, high base rating being unwanted barrier to new users) which cannot be solved because of bigger issue. Hope Mike and CF team, and our community find a clever way to deal with these.
Sum of rating changes after a round is approximately 0 => whatever you set as the starting rating is going to be the average of all ratings
Yes but I was talking about people making new account -> do one or two contest -> lose a lot of rating and throw that account away. Wouldn't this cause rating inflation?
It's true but it isn't really related to div.4 round. I can't see a relationship between div.4 round and rating inflation caused by new codeforces user as it is more related to quarantine.
When I was still wondering the missing Div1 and Div2, I saw the astonishing Div.4:)
It's my life) lol
some good news in this quarantine. Thanks Mike
tourist should participate. Upvote if you wanna see his finishing time :D
30 minutes is max)
In his last div 3 participation, he solved all 7(or 6) questions in 22 mins. You're underestimating him lol
..not more than 15 minutes I think!
Ok. I think it is good argument
I’m going with 12 minutes https://codeforces.net/contest/1335/standings The F on this round was hard and tedious too.
Let's find ans with binary search
Will new unrated accounts be treated as trusted participants since the initial rating start from 1500 ?
This will be great...Hope to solve atleast 3 problem:)
Solve all
[
]
But you can't participate. So you can jump. but I say to wait for div2/3.
....On the one hand, the number of gray and green participants in total exceeds the number of other participants. On the other hand in typical....Really, how many hands does Mike have?
That's two hands, learn to count smh
I have done 4 rounds so far:
And now my poor self is sitting at 1331 points. Div-4 is exactly the kind of motivation I am looking for in I my life. Finally something that doesn't make me want to commit sudoku. Thank you Mike for this competition.
Why not FIRST solve a lot of problems in practice BEFORE entering any competition?
First,you should try to solve easy problems FAST and PRECISELY.
A wrong submission increase problem penalty by 10 min/reduce the problem value by 50 points.
You are ranked with penalty if you have same problem solved with others in div.3, 1-minute penalty lowers your rank by 100~300.
The same with div.2, so you must solve problems fast and precisely.
BTW, you must focus on your ranking instead of problem solved
If you can solve easy problems fast and precisely, then you can try to solve hard problems.
If you can solve 4 problems in div.3 / 2 problems in div.2, you'll be specialist.
I think Div4 is unneeded because:
1) It will just make managing and tracking of rounds difficult.
2) This will decrease the standard of Codeforces. Many prefer Codeforces because it provides unique and challenging problems. I think Codeforces should better invest its time on maintaining standard it had set. I don't want Codeforces to become Leetcode. Current divisions are enough.
Instead, just add a lower bound rating to div2 and increase frequencies of div3.
[accidentally posted]
You can't compare leetcode and CF, different type of problems, different goals (competitive programming vs job interview preparation). For example, there are lots of math in CF and very little on LC because on a real job interview no one cares about math (except some specific companies). Even programming languages are very different (Python, Java and some C++ vs C++ dominating on CF).
Now I started to feel locked down for real!
I don't get the points why too many arguments against the division-4 . If It's too easy for you then make a race to finish all the problems in the shortest time and enjoy the contest or skip that.
Was it really necessary to provide ratings for printing "Hello World"?
Enough complaining already, if you are with higher rating, you should see this as a nice way to train your speed and accuracy on easier problems.
Or just don't participate and train on the Gyms with harder problems. :)
You won't be able train on GYM when there's a long queue from system testing
I don't know if you have considered this, but adding extra contests will be bad for training, when I want to do virtual contest/gym I have to chose a time when there is no other round running, as this will affect my contest.
On the other hand I think these contests would help me learn new languages, as a start I want to improve my python skills and learn JavaScript.
Yes, indeed. I try to look on the bright side of things.
I can remember people complaining about introducing Div 3, but then many of them were taking part on contests.
So, lets not complain that much — I'm sure everyone can find something valuable in such contests, more or less. :)
When it says "do not have a point of 1600 or higher in the rating" should it really be 1400?
I think there's no relationship between
official participants(<1400) andtrusted participants(<1600)I'm a bit confused, though
Making more divisions with more easy problems is not the solution.
I see a lot of comments from low-rated users (I'm a low-rated user, I know) cheering Div 4 competitions because they think that FINALLY they will be able to practice. That's not true, there are a lot of Div2 A and Div2 B problems from which a complete begginer will get some benefit.
Can't agree more.But I think there'll be more problems for them to practice in div.4 .
I think the existing three divisions will work well if the lower-bound of the rating of rated participants for div.2 is increased. Then, lower-rated participants will focus on div.3. Making a div.3 contest slightly easier will balance everything.
Div 3+2 rounds would've been a better idea
well, reaching expert and specialist is easy if div 4 continues. Personally i feel div 3 is enough for a beginner to learn! That grey part in my graph taught me never to give up, but just learn learn and learn!
Happy to see DIVISION 4. Now I can get some fair and level competitors. Thank You Mike for your efforts
Despite my sadness, I wish everyone good luck in this round :)
In this case, you are not day dreaming :).
Instead of introducing so many new division, introduce a new type of contest which will have variable upper limit of rating for participation. Limit will be fixed by writer and co-ordinators before contests. If problems are easy then it will be rated for contestants having rating less than 1400 or less than 1200 if problems are very easy.
Limit will be 1600 if questions are comparatively difficult and so on.
So many divisions really sounds very strange.
Isn't this basically more divisions? I do not get the difference between making 10 new divisions and your idea. I mean, the only thing I get is that divisions will be un-named when your idea is implemented. Is that your intention or am I missing some important points?
I don't think contest like div4 will be very common. I believe this is arranged to check the server capabilities. As setting easier problem is easy (according to mike) so if something like this again happen in future then a rounding for testing will be necessary again. Situation may demand variable participants and variable rating limit.
For such case introducing new division again and again is not a good idea for me. Instead of this say div3 or div4(as already introduced) will have necessary limit according to situations.
Div.4 = Atcoder Beginner contest
Thanks, MikeMirzayanov.
I think any round with less difficulty than div3 would be more of a spoon feeding..although pupils and newbies are only able to solve 1 or 2 problems in div2 but they learn new concepts ans things from them..even if a pupil would solve all problems of div4 Its of no use if its not challenging and he doesnt learn anything...
To be honest, the original intention of creating div4 is good, which means Codeforces can attract more people to participate in CP. But at the same time, the inflation of rating will give professional players a painful blow. The scene of div3 is stil close to us. Hope Mike can think it carefully.
So sad that participants with rating < 1500 are banned from participating in virtual contests or solving problems from the archive with thousands of simple problems.
Is that right? My present score is 1250, and I have just resigtered for virtual participation in Round 638 Div 2 without any ban.
SARCASM! Ever heard of it?
Have you ever heard that incorrect information might be misleading to someone?
You can use the same argument to stop condudcting div1 rounds.
Yep, but I won't get ez upvotes for a reasonable comment :( Obviously, Div4 rounds are just another entry point in CP for beginners. I don't know if we need one and it's not for me to decide.
I have no doubt in my mind that it will help a lot to the begginers and will be very popular even after the quarantine period
Why is there a space between # and 640 in the title?
maybe just editing mistake
Social Distancing.
I think it is a terrible idea to make a Div4. When Div3 opened, I noticed that the (average) number of participants of a Div2 round is less than in a Div3. People with lower rating accepted that they are not good enough for Div2 and started participating only in Div3 (I don't say everyone did this, but the numbers clearly show that lots of <1600 rated coders did this). Therefore to give a chance to <1600 participants, Div3 contests became more regular, as Div2 and Div1 became more rare. If someone only participates in Div3, they won't come across the harder problems, and will learn way slower. And now this Div4 will make things even worse. The only good thing it does is it makes <1400 participants easier problems, therefore more solved problems, so they will think that they are more successful. But in reality they are just separated from the others, given way easier problems. I suggest all <1600 participants to participate in Div2, try to solve harder problems after the contest (even if it takes few hours or even days!) or at least read the editorials. That's a more efficient way to learn. I know that Div2 is harder and many won't be able to solve more than 2 problems during the contest, but it is much better if you want to learn.
Why do you notice on the dark side only? One person's skill grows step by step. If you look at the dark side,I can say about the bright side. Trying to solve problem is the best way to become a problem solver. But if you try problems which are too hard to you,then it won't come to a help. So at first a person should try very easy problem,then bit difficult,then more difficult. In this way a person can be a good problem solver. However I salute the thinking of division 4
So, you are thinking div3 problems are too easy. Please, for you it's easy. For others, it's not. Even, people in purple rank can't solve all the problems. And also, the ratings of the last problem are around 2300-2600(although rating system looks pretty vogus to me). Now, let's come to your point. I went to pupil from newbie with div2, went to specialist with div2, went to expert with div2. And there are plenty other peoples who went to this rating by div2. People with lower ratings participate in div2, people with lower ratings participate in div1 + div2 combined rounds too. It's not that they only stick around div3. And div3 D, E, F are interesting too. div3 E is a problem equivalent to div1 A/B and div3 F is equivalent to div1 C/D. So, they get acquanted with harder problems.
maybe a should play bad next div 2 round to become green so that i can become expert easier from div 4 xD
Would this be feasible? Just a thought. Comment
maybe it would be a good idea to make div3 more easier. Prob D,E,F of div3 could be more easier.
No, what's left interesting if you make it easier?
Noooooo :(
That's bad idea. There are too many div3 round ALREADY.
It's a good idea to enhance the morale of beginners. Thanks Mike.
Solve 50 problems with difficulty "your rating+200" and you won't be begginer any more.
What about educational rounds? Is there any clear distinction between Div3, Div4 and Educational rounds? Maybe it's time to give a number to Educational rounds too, like Div 2.5 (or Div3, but then make Div3 -> Div4, Div4 -> Div5)?
On the one hand, the number of gray and green participants in total exceeds the number of other participants.I think you include most of the fake accounts, that doesn't participate all time.
Mr Mirzayanov: Div 4 rounds will not affect the frequency of Div 1 and 2 rounds.
Also Mr Mirzayanov: Replaces a Div 1 and 2 round with a Div 4 round.
The contest should be unrated for the newly created accounts(accounts created after the announcement of div. 4).
If long queue problem had a difficultly tag, it would be more than 4000,but mike found very good solution, I am very impressed. it's sad that I am under 18 and I couldn't donate money to codeforces...
I don't see much benefit to adding a division below div3. If it's intended for people who, based on rating, struggle to solve div2A+B and get destroyed by div2C, then div3 totally works for teaching them something more advanced than simple implementation. The only real benefit is using these as rated testing rounds.
This is a good div3 range of topics. Anything harder than one trivial ad-hoc idea already qualifies a problem for potentially div1.
I think problems 1-3 on atcoder could pose as the middle tasks for this division
With this concept of Div 4, we can have a lower bound on Div 2(like Div 1) in between 1401-1501. This will definitely help to reduce the load on Div 1/2 contests.
As some people have mentioned, MikeMirzayanov should create a lower bound for div2 (1400 for example). Otherwise, it remains the same since div4 participants still take part in div2 contest.
I think this is a good idea for beginners and it will encourage them especially because it will not contain difficult algorithms
good luck :)
I'll try my best to be quallified to participate in Div4 rounds:）
tourist participates in this round to feel the new div4, and solve all problems in 3 minutes.
curious to see the difficulty of div4 A..
See the problem A last night!
Print "Hello Div4!!#"
Why did you post the statement of problem A?! Now the round has to be unrated because of this.
[Deleted]
Although this type of contest might help you in learning that specific topic, I think the idea of competitive programming is to be able to think in creative/different ways.
If you have a contest with 6 dp problems you'll miss out on the part wherein the participant brainstorms on the problem to boil down on an approach, here, they'll simply know, "Oh ok this is based on dynamic programming, let me just try to come up with recursive relations".
I think a crucial part of learning is also being able to know what to apply where.
I don't think so. If you get all questions of the same type, one may solve NO problems or all. You cannot except a beginner to identify oh it is a DP question, and learn and implement simple DP within two hours. Do you think solving similar questions, repeating the same code six times is fun? It's more like a online competitive programming training course.
For div4 questions maybe we can include problem-tags in the statement,or even giving hints on the first problem. Newbie can make good use of two hours to google and learn something useful/fun.
.
Did you even try?
I hope that this is just an experiment, and Div.4 rounds won't keep appearing in the future: Div.3 is easy enough, and newbies also need their own challenges. In fact I'm somehow confused: is this experiment for "more trivial rounds for newbies" or "check if everything works correct in order to hold normal rounds well"? "I want to be absolutely, completely sure that everything works as it should before the start of a Div.1 / Div.2 round", will it be just an excuse? XD
But anyway, I'd like to see the experimental Div.4 can be held smoothly, and I hope that our round could be rescheduled earlier. And also my suggestion: a lower bound of rating for Div.2 participants will decrease the queue, since Mike said that green and gray are such a big part of Div.2. Then they can concentrate on problems fit them(Div.3) but not struggling in Div.2 and make a queue.
Hope Codeforces will be better.
Minor typo on the title of this post.
Current: Codeforces Round # 640 (Div. 4)
Suggestion: Codeforces Round #640 (Div. 4)
Wow，this is the best chance to pursuade my friend to get involved in the algorithm contest!Very grateful to codeforces~
MikeMirzayanov has really put so much thought into this:
Inspiring!
I think that for some beginners, it is not only the difficulty of the questions that causes them to pass less questions, but also the unfamiliarity with English problems (and even the speed of the Internet). Shorter questions and helpful samples are more friendly to beginners.
A few days later, I realize that I was talking about a very small number of cases. Sorry.
I think, their must be a lower limit for Div 2 to decrease Queue during contest.
Wow, i was about to leaving CF contests as i could not solve any problem in any contest not even A. Hope this Div. 4 is for me to cheer up again with CF contests.Thank you writer.
I would like to have entry hurdles for new accounts. For example, that a number of problems must be solved before participation in contests is possible. Or the participation in 3 virtual constests is mandatory, something like that.
Yaa!! It's actually needed because in nearly time there are so much traffic in this site.Maybe it's help
So the trusted participants whose rating is between 1400 and 1600 will be included in the official ranking, but not rated?
Very much appreciated.
Div. 10 questions be like: "Just submit anything and you'll get a point."
Div. 11 "Find submit button"
Div. 12 "Register to the contest".
Div. 13 +100 just for participating.
Div.14 +250 just login at codeforces
Div.15 +500 just turn on laptop
codeforces=memeforces
We hope in div.4 ,we will be so much benefited as a begginer.Thanks MikeMirzayanov for arranging such wonderful round.
It Will be Unrated for me but IDK why I am still very excited for this new kinda round xDD
who's rating under 1400, can participate div 2/div3??
I guess 10 types of people
01 those who want to have harder challenges and experiments.
10 Fake accounts...
(
)
Wow! so surprised. I hope it works well. I have an offer too... what about making limits for participating div2 contests like div1 contests too? I mean like 1500 or ...
Lame. When does Div. 0 start?
MikeMirzayanov Can I participate in this round please my rating is exactly 1400.
Why are people downvoting?
Yes you can participate but as an unofficial participant.
The answer of your question is already told in the blog. That might be the reason for downvoting.
Div.5 is coming on the way
Is it just an experiment or you are gonna do it frequently. I don't like the idea of div4, it can be great for pupils but you can do this simply by making div3 round of 2:30 min and adding two trivial tasks.
I also think it is better.
миха, ты чекнулся? какой див 4? тебе делать нечего, или что?
So finally I'm unrated in some rated round. (#feelingblessed) but #div2frequencymustnotdecrease
I think decreasing the difficulty of div3 question would have been a better options instead of creative a new division. I just hope the frequency of div2 contest doesn't decrease.
Если проблема с софтом — у нас тут огромное коммьюнити чтобы помочь. Если уперлись с текущим бюджетом в железо, то можно посмотреть в сторону платных фич, например мерч или те же EDU курсы. Также поддержку можно сделать не разовой, а на постоянной системе а-ля патреон. Если проблема в чем-то другом, то извиняюсь.
This is a great job dear MikeMirzayanov. Div-4 will be helpful and motivational round for newcomer and beginner
Thanks for the contest <3
Вместо того, чтобы сделать div3 раунды, которые уже ориентированы на эту аудиторию, немного проще — Майк вводит div4. Браво, гениальный ход
Индусы довольны? Довольны. Значит, все правильно.
Thanks MikeMirzayanov!! Would you consider making div-3 rounds rated for people with rating < 1800 ?
Suggestion: Scoring rule for div. 4 rounds should be IOI, not ICPC, since the participants are not very skilled or just begin their journey in programming. Getting a 0-point for forgetting a corner case may be more or less very discouraging, as you said
Yeah this is going to be so good for gray and green users.. greetings
I liked the idea of the maximum rating of 1400. If it was 1500 everyone would have created a new account and participated. It will make the people who are div.4 lose so much confidence in their skills. But now it's 1400 all people who are div.4 will have a better experience. I think we need a new rank between 1400-1500. Because now we have a div.4 :)
I'm very happy to be a part of a new beginning . The first round of division 4 in codeforces histoy. And yes , I'm a trusted participant and I'm very exited to participate in this round .
There are newbies in my college who haven't have hands on CP and never tried codeforces contests. But I saw this post and seems reasonable to introduce them to CP. So many of them need to register first on the platform. Would they be considered for rating??
I don't know whether this has been asked before, but does this imply that future Div. 2 rounds will have a lower bound for participation (1600 if I got the idea correctly)? If so, I think it's a great idea :)
Part of the time of the first Div-4 contest clashes with Topcoder srm #which_to_choose :-(
Solve problems fast, and do Topcoder.
They need 3 LGM testers for a Div 4 round??
Seems like they choose only the best.
it is not a question of rating/color. it's about choosing trusted people who will not publish the problems anywhere + they probably solved these problems in minutes
[DELETED]
Out of the context comment :
What do testers do exactly ? Writing test cases ?
Testers try to make sure that the problems are flawless-
They check if the problem statements are correctly expressed as intended and are not ambiguous.
They check if all the test cases are correct and whether they include all the corner cases.
They submit both the intended solution and a slower solution (usually bruteforce) for a particular problem, to make sure that only the intended solution passes the given constraints and the others fail.
They make sure that problems of the right difficulty levels are used.
Also, multiple testers make sure that if some tester missed on something, the others are most likely to figure it out.
is this round... r r rated?
im more excited since the GOD himself is testing. Golovanov399
My first contest, hope everything goes well (＾ｕ＾)
GL & HF
Did Sho test the round twice?
3000+ new accounts have registered for this contest so far !(8 hours are still remaining for the contest to start, expecting the count to reach 7k-8k) :(
idk how seriously people read "I urge participants whose rating is 1400+ not to register new accounts..."
My time is comming!!! I will become purpil tonight!!!
not tonight
after hacking phase and system testing
Is that a hybrid of pupil and candidate master?
Plz make this round unrated for new users. Because most of them have 1400+ rating and they are created account for just participanting this round. And we actual user will actually get suffer for rating.
Agree!
Please still hold on today's Div1 and Div2 Competition!!!!!!!!
4k+ unofficial registration and 3k+ unrated participants. Almost 40% are out of official final standing. If div4 continues (I don't think it will continue) then we will see more people out of official standing than people in official standing. That might not be an expected outcome of div4 rounds.
I think the original Codeforces Rounds of Div 1, Div 2 and Div 3 were enough because it motivates low rated programmers to reach 1600 ratings so that they can be in a new division. Now the target for low rated coders will be to cross 1400 that is not useful I think.
Also, we should motivate low rated coders to solve more than 2 questions in Div2 instead of having a separate division for them.
Div 3 is the easiest contest in my knowledge, I don't understand what can be easier than that @Mike.
Instead, it will be better to reduce the rating bar for Div 3.
Div 3: < 1400
Div 2: 1400 to 1900
Div 1: > 1900
If questions are sorted in difficulty like Q1, Q2, Q3... Q9.
( Q3 has the difficulty of Div 2 A )
( Q5 has the difficulty of Div 2 C )
( Q7 has the difficulty of Div 2 E )
Div 3: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5
Div 2: Q3, Q4, Q5, Q6, Q7
Div 1: Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q9
This will be better and having 3 Rounds will be a good idea instead of 2 rounds for any contests.
Anyone who had any suggestions on this idea?
I think div3 should be rated for only those participants who have rating upto 1600, and for participation purpose only upto 1900 should be allowed. Secondly for div2 everything is fine except the fact that of the registration of new participants. what I would urge for is that a user should be allowed to register in any codeforces contest iff he has registered into codeforces for atleast a week before the contest begins! This would help prevent some suckers giving contest again and again creating new IDs everytime just to top the charts!
Yes, there should be entry hurdles for new accounts. previous comment
3525+ New accounts registered :(
Now it is 3900+
Please make round unrated for who create new account because they have alreay rating greater than 1400.
мдаааа, видимо индусы не могут нормально даже див 3 писать, раз на такие меры идут...
It is still an Announcement of Codeforces Round #640 (Div. 4)
No. You see there are ~500 comments not about the round itself, but about the idea of such rounds. So I decided to split two discussions.
My point is that it is registered as an announcement of a round.
Thanks, I'll fix it.
Wow, preparing div3 round is harder than preparing div2 rounds and even div1 rounds. Nice joke.
It's not a joke actually, I remember reading somewhere that problemsetters find it hard to make good easy problems that are easy for even low rated people.
I think i have an idea to reduce fake new accounts. For new account their rating should start with zero and based on their performance it will increase or decrease instead of subtracting from 1500 or adding to 1500 default rating.That means in beginning they would be newbie and it will take few contests to reach their actual rating.(Atcoder have this policy).
I have plans to implement something like this.
Now I don't like the idea to run in parallel Div. 3 and Div. 4 rounds (like we do for Div. 1 and Div. 2). Div. 3 rounds are harder to prepare and I don't think we can host them more than once per ~2 weeks. It means that such rounds will not give new contests for newcomers and grays/greens (I think Div. 3 are already interesting rounds for them to take part). But separate Div. 4 rounds will be easier to prepare (even than Div. 3) and probably making them we can offer more contests for low rated participants.You are right here. But I think whenever there will be Div3 contest, Div4 could be held parallelly where only grays can participate in Div4 and Greens and Cyans in Div3 officially :)
Pretty excited to see the first Div 4 round! All the best to the gray and green coders! May the force be with you . :)
Me Without unofficial
1455
Me With unofficial
11111
In div 4.
I think we should have Div4 but I still respectfully disagree about how Div4 should be viewed internally.
This is because beginners and experts have different needs. The type of people that do Div1 contests are into olympiads generally, and are trying to be very good at programming, so it is appropriate to have super hard problems. If in a contest people that are low Div1 only get 1 or 2 problems in a 2.5h contest, that is still fine relatively because the contest is "professional" level, similar to IOI, that pushes the limit of skill — it is expected in IOI level that many people will only solve a little bit of the test. However, if a relatively good Div4 participant is solving only 1 or 2 questions then it is suboptimal and reduces their potential future interest in programming which is kind of a goal here..
To borrow some math contest analogy, Div4 should be viewed more like "AMC math contest", a contest intended for a wide range of participation. In my opinion these should be like 75 minute contests, where maybe 0.5% to 1% (100-200) of strong Div4 participant, or even more (say 500+ / 20000) will solve all questions in the time limit. By the time they get to this level they will already have graduated to harder contests like Div3, 2 etc. similar to how you qualify for harder and longer mathematics contests in highschool.
Also one counterargument that was made was that "we don't want Div4 to just be speed contest, there should be hard problems too." But the hard problems are coming in so hard that if you can solve them you are already probably 2000 rating in performance anyways. Having 2.5% solve all questions still gives aspirational goals for the other 97.5% of participants, plus that top 2.5% will probably graduate beyond Div4 shortly anyways. Also CF is already a "speed contest" because of how the problems are scored, speed is important.
TLDR: target that 3% of official contestants solve all div4 questions, consider 75-minute contests, needs of beginners vs experts is different so you can't make analogy to Div1.
I don't think it's good to have 7 problems in these "standard" contests.
Hell I don't even see it should be like that in Div3s.
You don't have to follow the same structure of Div1s and Div2s in these contests, they have different goals and are meant for different people so they shouldn't just be your regular 6-7-8 problems with graduating difficulties, that is exactly what will get you in trouble when you try to think about a suitable A problem for every new and easier division.
It doesn't have to be like that, why not just a 1-hour(maybe 45 minutes) contest, with 3-4 "medium" carefully chosen problems.
Just remember when you first began CP, how did you spend the 2-hour duration in your first Div2? I remember it was overwhelming for me and I only spent like 45 minutes or so before giving up after trying A and B.
My point is, this is all made for a great cause; to ease the entry of newcomers to this somewhat "frightening" sport at first.And to hopefully help grow the community by providing support with these rounds like detailed editorials with implementations in different languages etc.. but come on, we need to study our target audience and think more about the format of the contest, the problem statements, the duration, the difficulties etc.. We can't just keep adding a new division with the same rules and formats but with just easier problems.
I only read ABCD and they were great by the way, very good job!
how is the penalty calculated ? i did not submit any wrong attempt and still my penalty was at 114.
I think it is simply sum of minutes per commited problem.
and the guy who solved G and the one who solved E. There is no difference??
I dont think so. People are ranked by number of solved problems, no matter which ones. For same number the penalty ties which is the sum of minutes per problem, plus some minutes for wrong submissions.
I liked this round. It was more of speed. Thanks MikeMirzayanov.
Only E and F were real problems(Div2 A and B)..Rest were meh. I am never giving div 4 again. Period
And yes.. I found out that I need more time in casework problems than logical ones
I think just small change (adding problems, and lowering diff of the last 1, 2) to existing div3 will cover the div4 and div3 purposes. I really don't see any needs of holding separated contests.
Some thoughts after completing round 640. In my opinion, problem A can be a little bit more easier considering the round is targeting beginners. It would not affect other participants while real newbies can have a chance to complete 1 or 2 problems easily.
Users with rating >= 1400 participating with fake accounts
I only have one question and that is
When does Mike Mirzayanov sleep ? I'm not even kidding, he is online like 90% of time !
Will there be more div.4 rounds? MikeMirzayanov
I think that Div. 4 rounds are not an unexpected idea for Mike. I suppose that he'd thought about it years ago and the system problem is just an excuse to realize it. Maybe Mike will add Div. 5 in future, we don't know anything.
I think that the rating change for unranked people in div4 needs work. They are starting from 1500 yet they are participating in a contest rated for < 1400. Also, the seed functionality is broken for them.
In these times of despair brought about by a global pandemic, taking a moment to appreciate the efforts of Codeforces and MikeMirzayanov for bringing happiness to the lives of us noob coders by giving them a great confidence-boosting platform. Looking forward to more such rounds and a great initiative indeed, cheers!
I hope there will never be round like Div.1 + Div.4! :)
When's the next one?
So, we will have a first div.4 round in Codeforces Round #784...? That's amazing.
No, that's actually the second.
Hii friends I am new to Competitive Programming. Can Anyone tell me how many contest code forces organize for division 4 in a month?
Thanks
Historically, there's been 1 division 4 contest every 2 years. You can see the contest history in the contests tab at the top. Someone in division 4 can compete in division 2 and division 3 contests as well.
Are Div4 rounds not rated for pupils?
its rated for below specialist.
imo Div.4 should be removed. In the recent rounds of Div.4, you can see that a half of the people solved at least 4 problems out of 8, and a lot of people solved 7 out of 8, which makes the round boring (and Speedforces, sometimes). This situation is almost never present in Div.3, Div.2, and Div.1. So maybe we should put the Div.4 participants into Div.3 and get Div.4 removed;
imo Div.2/3/4 should be removed. In the recent rounds of Div.2/3/4, you can see that a half of the people solved at least 4 problems out of 5/6/7/8, and a lot of people solved 4/5/6/7/8 out of 5/6/7/8, which makes the round boring (and Speedforces, sometimes). This situation is almost never present in Div.1. So maybe we should put the Div.2/3/4 participants into Div.1 and get Div.2/3/4 removed;