Leaderboard is screwed.

This is how an achievement can ruin the integrity of the gameplay and rules.

And this is just one of the reasons why I think achievements should become a thing of the past.  People are going to cheat no matter what, but this gives them even more incentive.

@Murgatroyd7 so ALL achievements should become a thing of the past? You base this solely on this 1 achievement? While I agree that this particular achievement is "tainted", by no means do you abandon the system. I can't tell you how many games I have replayed for the sake of trying things a different way and being rewarded for it. Developers should take things like this into account when creating their achievements. The system is not flawed, the thinking behind a select few cheevos is.

I agree Coolester.

Achievements are not solely responsible. They need to be thought through rather than thrown together.

My point is this: other Scrabble clones use the ELO rating system as well. As an example, currently I am ranked a 1607 on Words Bypost. My record is something like 120 wins and 90 losses with 2 draws.

Now taking that into account, because of the rampant cheating on the leaderboard for lexicographer, to get this achievement legit, you would now have to be an etymological god who makes no mistakes.

Unless I want to boost myself and cheat to get it like so many others.

The achievement doesn't mean enough to me to do that, but it would be really nice

to have a complete and working product, i.e. with no legitimate leaderboard there shouldn't be one.

Leaderboards are the classic testament of skill, not achievements.

Because of this achievement and other half-baked ones (GRAW and FEAR2 come to mind) it

makes cheating on particular games balloon. We all know cheating is never going away, but why entice it?

Coolester, no, I am not basing my opinion on this one achievement.  I have felt this way for a long time.  Far too often, developers use achievements as a way to artificially lengthen their games.  One example is including an achievement for collecting all of an arbitrary item (gems, stars, coins, whatever) even though the game itself provides no reward for doing so.  And when achievements are tied to a multiplayer experience, it almost always attracts people who play unfairly because they absolutely have to increase that pointless little number that nobody else cares about.  So, yes, I personally think achievements should become a thing of the past.  Or at the very least, they need to stay out of multiplayer games.  There are already enough people who cheat online for not good reason; there's no need to give them an incentive.

Saying that developers use them to artificially lengthen a game is not a valid argument.  Someone like yourself you doesn't care about achievements, shouldn't be worried that he did not unlock all the achievements, so it didn't artificially lengthen anything for you.  

I do agree that there should be rules about achievements and online portions of games.  Leaderboard achievements, like this one cause problems, others cause people to ruin the flow of a game specifically trying to obtain one.  This one is additionally bad, because it would be extremely hard to determine if someone is cheating.  

It seems in this game a lot of people cheat, and not all of them from those sites.  I've played many games where everything seems civilized, then I get lucky and play a high scoring word and get a substantial lead, and all of a sudden the other player starts playing strange words that are way more complex than what they were playing before.  

@murgatroyd7, also you are a hypocrite because you are a member of trueachievements and have had your achievements removed due to cheating.  your tag is listed as No Tracking, which is from "egregiously" cheating.  meaning you were either hacking or gamesaving.

I would guess that you are upset because of that and now want to condemn the whole system, so I suggest you grow up. 

I say the argument is plenty valid.  It has nothing to do with whether or not the game is lengthened for me personally.  The problem is that instead of lengthening a game with actual content or providing decent incentive to replay a game (multiple endings, alternate storylines, different play styles, etc.) they just throw in a "Collect every useless arbitrary collectible in the game" like it is somehow a proper way to add a few hours to the experience.  And people eat it up.

As for TrueAchievements, you are making a lot of assumptions there that are off-base.  Yes, they stopped tracking my achievements ages ago.  No, I wasn't cheating to unlock achievements.  And no, I'm not bitter because of some bad experience on the site.  First of all, cheating for achievements makes no sense whatsoever.  Can you honestly think of one possible benefit?  There's nothing to gain from a higher score, there isn't even a leaderboard on the Xbox, nobody is going to think I'm "cool" because of my "high score" (which isn't all that high), and I'm the only one who can see them anyway.  If I was cheating, I would have a heck of a lot more achievements and I probably wouldn't keep them private.

I use the guides on there because although I dislike the achievement system (I have felt this way for a couple of years), I do like to unlock certain ones...but I don't bother to log in because I don't use any of the site's other features.  At some point last year, I was apparently reported by someone.  It was months before I found out because the notification went to my old e-mail account, so they removed everything.  After inquiring and getting an explanation, I was offered to have everything reinstated, which I declined because I wasn't interested in being tracked at that point.  But I guess I should've just had them delete the account altogether...  I just never expected someone to like me enough to track me down on a site I no longer participate in so they can jump to silly conclusions about me because their feelings got hurt.

And to interupt the interesting 'Conversation' for a bit:

Sounds like you two should sort this out with a nice competitive game of AlphJax ;)

B.O.T.: I was trying to play a highly skilled player for sometime, by inviting Big ratio winners on the scoreboard.

It dawned on me rather quickly that the constant 'rejections' were not because they don't want to play me.. But probably that most are cheating. (I.e. Using dual accounts or similar)

How can I tell the difference?

Assume anyone with a 85% + win ratio is cheating?

Other games have sophisticated cheat detectors; detecting a player with too many quick games against an otherwise anonymous player would be pretty easy. Certainly detecting cheaters in the top 50 should be really easy. (Probably could do it manually with a spreadsheet in a couple hours.)

Also, getting a 90% win rate without cheating is pretty easy. Most random invites lead to a win, because they are from new players who haven't got an informal league going.