I am still not a fan of the recent changes to Duolingo, but it certainly looks like others are: The competition in the Obsidian League is off the charts, certainly compared to before.
Duolingo groups its users in leagues depending on how active we are. You start in the Bronze league, and if you have more XP than most, you can advance to silver by the end of the week. If you have less than the others, you are demoted. Next week you can advance to gold, and so on to sapphire, ruby, emerald, amethyst, pearl, obsidian, and finally diamond. Within each league, you compete in a group of 30 almost-random users: Those who happen to complete their first lesson of the week around the same time as yourself. This should in theory be random, but… If you start early on Monday morning, you are probably a competitive player and will compete with others of the same type. If you wait till late in the evening, you will probably compete with more casual players who still care about their daily streak, but perhaps not much more.
Well, I used to hang out in the Obsidian League for a long time under the old system, but dumped down in Pearl around the time they switched to the winding path system. (I can’t recall if this was related or just a coincidence.) This week I came back to Obsidian, and wow, the competition is insane. Back in the day, I could comfortably stay in Obsidian by doing two exercises a day. Some days I only needed to do one. Now? This week, the lowest user that is not in the demotion zone has 617 XP. It will probably be more before the league closes in the evening. So 90 points per day are the bare minimum and may not be enough to stay. That would be 6 (error-free) regular exercises, although you can get double XP for 15 minutes by doing your training at specific times of the day or after completing a full bubble. But if you are just trying to learn and not gaming the system, 6 exercises a day is the norm here, and it is not even the highest league!
I guess I must have entered really early in the morning this week, but still. This is intense. I was in this league for months and never saw anything remotely like this. This morning, I am currently number 22 (24-30 are demoted) but unless I keep playing for a while, I will almost certainly be booted from the league by this hardcore crowd.
Luckily Duolingo.com, the website, still has the dumbbells (training exercises) that give 10 XP per session for exercises the AI picks for you. It is less than the 15 XP you get for progressing down the winding path, but more than the 5 XP you get for repeating earlier topics of your own choice. It also restores a lost “heart” for each session. As a paying member, I get unlimited hearts instead of getting put on pause if I lose five hearts, but I generally see hearts as a good mechanic, telling the student that he or she is progressing too far, too fast, and should repeat older stuff instead. However, the training feature is missing on my Android phone. So if you get locked out for too many mistakes, try the website instead, and use the dumbbells (while they still exist, I guess) to improve your skills and gain more XP. I mean, we are probably here to learn languages, but it is kind of a game too, so why not play it?