Are all new problems difficult ones?

[xe3tec]

I wonder if all new problems are difficult ones, or only for math/coding freaks. I mean there are some not so difficult ones in between but will there be also some "easy" new ones or is it becoming more and more difficult?

[Lord_Farin]

I wonder if all new problems are difficult ones, or only for math/coding freaks. I mean there are some not so difficult ones in between but will there be also some "easy" new ones or is it becoming more and more difficult?

Problems are to be considered easy if after a week, more than 250 people have solved them; at the very least, that is a good indication that the problem is feasible. However, as you will understand, most users will demand harder and harder problems as they get along. That is what keeps it fun for them. It is the task and objective of the development team to ensure a good mix between hard and easy problems (if not, please correct me DT) in order to maximize the amount of enjoyment for the ensemble of users.

[xe3tec]

Yes I understand, especially there are many users who are here from the beginnings of the project.
So I just hav to be better

[stijn263]

Lord_Farin is entirely correct. For 'new' problems (from about 180 and further I guess?) we try to follow a easy-medium-hard-medium pattern, however our difficulty estimate is quite bad more often than not, so this doesn't say that much. The number of solvers is probably the best indication, of course keeping the publishing date in mind.

[xe3tec]

the problem for me is that I dont know which is easy or which just looks easy...and all newer ones are just solved by maybe 100 people, so that doesnt say anything

e.g. problem 340
dident look that terrible difficult, and I thought try... but I m still stuck
and I dont know if I can solve it or if I need some special math skills, so its a bit frustrating (actually I hav a solution, it just takes way too long)

maybe a little comment ala Easy/Medium/Hard in the problem description would help sometimes

[Lord_Farin]

... however our difficulty estimate is quite bad more often than not, so this doesn't say that much. ...

I think this phrase tells you that such a system would not be accurate. Further, one hundred solvers in half a week makes a problem almost certainly easier than one hundred in a month; keep that in mind. Good luck and enjoy PE

[quilan]

Yeah, it's very much a sliding metric of difficulty. Things that might have been considered 'hard' back in the earlier problems are easy compared to the later problems. It's mainly that doing all of these problems trains you in techniques & problem solving, so something that would have been hard before can be near trivial now. Thus, the overall difficulty in general of questions goes up as time goes on just because the users of the site have more experience. I'd say have fun with the earlier problems & you'll learn new things to help you tackle the newer ones.