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NY
@Kevin "This is what a Saturday puzzle is supposed to be" Absolutely. Haven't seen one this challenging and enjoyable in a long time.
A Friday that actually felt like a Friday for the first time in ages. Great fill. Really missed these
"Shortening for a city that omits 'onto'" is an utterly horrendous clue. How about "state that starts with IOW" for IOWA? What happened to Saturdays not being clued and filled identically to Tuesdays? I know the answer is "we get more money this way", but come on
Why is "swim with the fishes?" clued with a question mark? That's literally what you're doing. If the fill was "GETTINGYOURBODYTHROWNINTHEOCEANBYTHEMOB" you'd use a question mark
I know difficulty standards are in the gutter now. But "51-Down without its first letter" is egregiously bad, even for the modern crossword
@Bandit I do. That's why I whine about these. I miss when they offered any resistance at all or were willing to reference anything other than the most recent, most mainstream pop culture possible - it was nice to actually learn something from doing these. The easiness and enforced restriction is a drag
Absolutely no resistance on literally any of the clues. Why do the editors insist on doing this? I know it's a Tuesday, but what's the point of even bothering to do a completely frictionless crossword? Why so adamant about sucking any degree of challenge out of it? You're worried about dropping maybe two subscribers who are mad about taking a few extra minutes?
Back to Monday-level for the rest of the week, I guess
Been pretty tired for a while now of the difficulty of the week being flattened to Monday/Tuesday every weekday and Wednesday on the weekend. It's obviously not getting any better. I'll miss what used to be the best crossword in existence, but once I'm finished with the archive it's probably time to cancel. Kind of sad and bizarre that even something as niche as the NYT crossword puzzle isn't exempt from the way everything on the internet is trending quality-wise
@marty If you don't like gimmicks, maybe don't do the NYT Thursday puzzle instead of insisting they stop doing the enjoyable thing they've been doing for Thursday puzzles for decades
If you're looking for puzzles that are of the difficulty and quality of the pre-2020 NYT, where do you go? This one used to be the gold standard, and I'm not sure where to get my fix now
Filled and clued like Highlights magazine. Since this is the Saturday standard now, not really seeing any point in renewing a very long subscription
@Derek Nobody born at any point in human history has outside of the NYT puzzle. It's not dated; it's a crossword thing
@DQ The NYT puzzles used to be the gold standard. They were challenging and clever and drew from a massive pool of knowledge and vocabulary. You were pretty much guaranteed to learn something from them. There are plenty of easier crossword puzzles to do if none of that appeals to you. Leave this one alone
These have really gotten to the point that they're so easy and watered-down that they're barely worth doing. No point in even complaining about this one specifically, because almost every puzzle is barely Tuesday-level now. It's a drag to go through the archives and see the standard of both difficulty and quality the puzzle used to be at. There's almost nothing separating it at this point from like, USA Today
Been going through the archives and enjoying how challenging Thursdays-Sundays used to be pre-2020. Tricky, clever clues and fill that assumed solvers were familiar with literally anything other than A-list celebrities and the most current possible events/vocabulary. Sad to see what it's turned into
I know the puzzle freaks out about mentioning anything that's not current pop culture anymore but they still make Alvin and the Chipmunks movies. Doesn't really need the "old" hedge
@Rahul Absolutely. This is (or at least comes close to, for the first time in a while) the level of difficulty Thursdays should be at. Enjoyed it all around
Maybe the worst week in the history of the crossword. Tuesdays all around, and I'm guessing it's not getting any better from here. Thankful for the archive at least
"Suffix with caffe-" would be an awful clue even on a Monday. How did that get through?
@Zézito Complaints about difficulty and "obscure fill" seem to have contributed to the puzzle becoming much easier and much worse lately, so I guess you should be thankful that you're at least usually the target audience now
@Zézito Before the puzzle made a point to cater to people like you, who hate the slightest hint of anything that might break a streak or make it take longer than your best time to solve a puzzle, this was Thursday level difficulty, which was appreciated. The best Thursday puzzle in a while
Best Wednesday in literal years. First one up to the standard of what the puzzle was before the revenue push that I can remember in a long time
@Barry Ancona I mean, not really, but it's about as close as anyone can ask for lately
@Lpr Not sure what the implication of this is supposed to be. The puzzles aren't getting easier (they objectively are), because of some unspecified thing to do with Will Shortz?
This was a Tuesday with long answers, but what else is new lately?
@Our AI Overlords Kind of ironic to call people who recognized that obvious non-joke for the straightforward, lousy clue it was, "humorless"
@B Editorial policy. Constructors have posted crosswords with their own submitted clues on sites like Crosshare after they've run here, and they take a real axe to anything that's clued in a remotely challenging way
@Wayne Harrison After thinking about it more it wasn't harsh enough. It's literally the worst clue I've ever seen
Even for a Tuesday - when you see clues like "Greek god whose name is an anagram of ROSE" and compare them to the clues in old Archive puzzles, it's wild the extent to which the editors have completely lost respect for the intelligence of solvers
A ___ saved is a ___ earned! Whose face is on the penny? Which big building used to make the penny? Etc. On top of all the other insultingly easy fill, most of this puzzle would have been a blast if I was a kid filling in a placemat at a diner
@Rich in Atlanta If this doesn't hammer home how boring and repetitive and totally lacking in any creativity or spark or challenge whatsoever the modern puzzle is, not sure what does
@Mimi "over 25 entries being either foreign language, proper (capitalized) words, archaic, slang, and acronyms/initialisms" lol. God forbid the puzzle include things that are slightly less difficult than extremely recent pop culture, clues that essentially give you the answer, or anything else that might challenge you at all, like the puzzle used to include before its sole goal became money over quality
@Kevin Congrats! Give the old Fridays and Saturdays from the archives a shot and see how you do
@Andrzej It seems it's less that there's "something wrong with the theme" and more that you, personally, didn't understand it, or much of the fill. That's not really on the constructor. Liked this one a lot
Sorry, but getting a giant Monday on a Sunday is a real drag. I know it's not the 2000s anymore and the point of the crossword is to make every puzzle as easy as possible and bring in subscriber revenue, but this was ridiculous
With clues like these on a Friday, why not just go half a step further and literally give you the answer? What's the point?
There's really nothing worse than a Sunday clued and filled like a Monday. Who gets enjoyment out of something like this?
Listen I know the crossword isn't what it used to be. But 3 Down on the Mini really warrants a "don't worry, it's not as hard as you think"? That's where the "respecting solvers' intelligence" bar is at now?
@Ian People "Calling foul" on the slightest hint of obscurity in a weekend puzzle as if it's the constructor's fault is why these have been watered down to the brink of pointlessness, so the good news for you is that'll probably continue to happen
@Ken There are plenty of crosswords out there for almost any level of proficiency. There used to be only one like the old NYT crossword, and now there aren't any
SONYREADERS are "Former e-book devices, until 2014"? So they came back in 2014?
Last few days of the crossword have been the best in years. So much more diverse in fill/cluing and more challenging and fun than any time I can remember since the post-COVID push for subscribers/dive in quality. Hope it keeps up
Almost shocked by what the standards have become here. Why not just publish a Monday every day?
This is in no way, shape or form proper Saturday difficulty, but that's a losing battle
@MrB This isn't much of a defense of the puzzle in its current state. Yeah, America-specific clues in an American puzzle might be obscure for people who aren't from America. This would be true on a Monday or a Saturday. Not sure how that addresses the valid complaint that weekend puzzles have become insultingly easy in general
I'm doing an old archive puzzle and the clues are stuff like "Decorticates", "German Expressionist Emil", "Savoyard guard", and other words/things no one has ever heard of that you have to actually puzzle out. It's challenging and interesting. This is not. Really sick of every weekday essentially being a Monday/Tuesday