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Platinum Difficulty Ratings - A Question


DrBloodmoney

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3 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Because if one trophy is too difficult for someone to get, then what does it matter how easy all the others are?

 

They are not getting the platinum due to that one trophy. 

I guess because at that point it's not up to the guide writer to determine what any single player can manage. A good guide writer will contextualize every trophy, and will also acknowledge their metrics for difficulty in their guides. But I've written guides, and I feel very confident in placing the difficulty on a slide that is balanced by the entire experience. If you are looking to a guide to tell you the difficulty of an experience, then you should allow for a +/- in terms of overall difficulty

 

Better generalize the difficulty rather than scare people away because you give an overall easy game a 7/10 just because one hard trophy exists in the list

Edited by Deadly_Ha_Ha
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7 minutes ago, Deadly_Ha_Ha said:

I guess because at that point it's not up to the guide writer to determine what any single player can manage. A good guide writer will contextualize every trophy, and will also acknowledge their metrics for difficulty in their guides. But I've written guides, and I feel very confident in placing the difficulty on a slide that is balanced by the entire experience. If you are looking to a guide to tell you the difficulty of an experience, then you should allow for a +/- in terms of overall difficulty

 

I agree with this post, but that is a different thing you're talking about.

 

Here, you are talking about the differences in difficulty from player to player. 

Obviously, I agree, relative difficulty across players of different experience levels and gaming preferences and peculiarities is a tough thing quantify, and needs a certain massaging 'average' factor.

 

However, the response of mine you quoted is not in relation to the differences in relative difficulty between players, it was in relation to averaging specific experiential difficulty between individual trophies on a list.

 

You yourself said it:

 

16 minutes ago, Deadly_Ha_Ha said:

If one trophy is a 7/10 difficulty for me and 40 other trophies are a 4/10, I'm supposed to feel accurate giving the platinum effort a 7/10? I don't see that.

 

you weren't speaking in terms of how different players will experience a game, you were referring specifically to a situation where you yourself, found one trophy to be harder than all the others.

 

I do think averaging the 'platinum difficulty' down any lower than the highest 'individual trophy difficulty' is disingenuous. 

 

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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Just now, Deadly_Ha_Ha said:

Sorry, I'm at work and a little sick, I need some time to try to wrap my mind around your post but I'll get back to you - I'm enjoying the discussion

 

Me too mate, no animosity here - feel better ?

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This site has been around for a long time I find it absurd that there's no difficulty polls. Many times the author has played many games of the genre and will find it 'easy' and hence rate it low.

 

It would be so much better with polls so everyone can give their say even players that put in the effort but gave up should have a vote not just the 'elite' that got the platinum.

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14 minutes ago, Deadly_Ha_Ha said:

It's semantics at some point but difficulty is so often inflated in this community that giving carte blanche to guide writers or even expecting them to base their difficulty metric on one single piece of a puzzle I don't think is the right move.

 

If one trophy is a 7/10 difficulty for me and 40 other trophies are a 4/10, I'm supposed to feel accurate giving the platinum effort a 7/10? I don't see that.

 

I'm going to borrow some of the language you just used and make my point again. A puzzle is not complete until every single last piece is in place. I stand by the logic I used to arrive at my conclusion 100%, but you do make some good points about community perception and expectations. I think that's more interesting conversation to have.  

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

 

Sorry, but I just can't see how this makes sense.

 

The 'Difficulty to platinum' has to be the highest difficulty of any individual trophy that is a component part.

 

I'd argue it would be fine if games had 2 values as @pinkrobot_pb said, ' i.e. 'general difficulty' and 'platinum difficulty' that would be cool...

...but as long as it is just 'platinum difficulty' it seems wildly disingenuous to state anything lower than the highest individual trophy value, as the platinum simply cannot be achieved without that trophy.

 

Averaging down from the maximum individual trophy difficulty is surely not how that should work.

 

If a game had 20 trophies (excluding the plat), and awarded 19 of them instantly upon starting (i.e. 1/10), but the last one required completion of a super difficult game (10/10), you wouldn't average down the 'overall difficulty to platinum' to 2/10. 

 

That would be like saying "jumping off a ten-storey building will only hurt a little:

It will really hurt right at the end, but 99% of the time you are falling it won't hurt at all, so the 'overall pain rating' is only 'mild'" :S1f602.png

 

 

 

 

 

Except this isn't what I'm saying? It's got nothing to do with the average difficulty of the other trophies, but the average difficulty of the game.  For the UMvC3 example - the trial difficulty is consistently 6 or 7/10, each one requires you to learn the combo from the beginning - learn the sequence of buttons, the timing, then put it all together to complete it.  That you've completed one hard trial does not make the next trial in any way easier since the characters have different timings and their combos are different.  You have to do this 100+ times. It would be brainless to rate UMvC3 based solely on the difficulty of its hardest trial since the difficulty comes from the quantity of trials rather than the difficulty of any single one.

 

The 100% in P4AU on the other hand requires you to complete maybe 2 trials that may be rated as 6/10 or thereabouts.  So you only have to grind 2 or 3 trials, which is far less taxing mentally than over 100, and will be achieved relatively quickly and easily.  The game is therefore not really worthy of the 6/10, since you only have to apply yourself to and learn 2 combos in total.

 

Edited by WakeUpHP
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2 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Just can't agree on this.

 

If there is something in the game that is a 6/10 difficulty, then it doesn't matter if every other thing is 1/10. If platinum requires you to do the 6/10 thing, the platinum is a 6/10.

 

Indeed. That would make games like Wolfenstein 2 5-6/10.

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Very interesting thread, I thought I would add my 2 cents in for what its worth! 

 

In my view there's a single fundamental problem with how games are rated on ANY website that tracks trophies and that's the grading system currently in use. Having a 1-10 spectrum of difficulty is far too narrow in my view and as a result a lot of games get clustered together that don't belong there. I think a lot of guide writers base their difficulty from their own experience which is misleading to the viewer, if anything basing the difficulty from an average player would possibly yield more accurate results.    

 

As far as my own view is concerned I cannot really comment too much but I would say some games are a 0 out of 100, an example would be Slyde or AAB Animals, 100 on the other hand would be an unobtainable platinum, not because of server closure but because it's impossible to do for instance Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus on PS Vita. 50 would be average middle of the road difficulty.

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Well, when i think about difficulty rating i don't think of my personal rating of the game difficulty, you have to to take the average gamer/Trophy hunter and not just judge solely on personal experience.                                                                                                 As for UMVC3 for example i think its absolutely 10/10 for an average gamer which might take them months to get used to it let alone finish it, but for me personally it would be 4/10 or 5. 

Edited by ShinWesker
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Most of the time there is going to be a difference of opinion about the difficulty of a game,some games you find easy other games you find them hard, another person might be the exact opposite that’s why the rating should work as an estimate at least for you i believe, the guide is road to the platinum so if there is 1 trophy that is difficult while the whole game is easy still the guide should be rated according to that trophy cause you do need to get that trophy in order to get the platinum!Many games exist as an example but take DMC 5 the game is a 2-3/10 but then it has 1 trophy which says get s rank in every stage in every difficulty,should you leave the difficulty at 3/10 on your guide or even say the average is 5/10?

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29 minutes ago, WakeUpHP said:

Except this isn't what I'm saying? It's got nothing to do with the average difficulty of the other trophies, but the average difficulty of the game.  For the UMvC3 example - the trial difficulty is consistently 6 or 7/10, each one requires you to learn the combo from the beginning - learn the sequence of buttons, the timing, then put it all together to complete it.  That you've completed one hard trial does not make the next trial in any way easier since the characters have different timings and their combos are different.  You have to do this 100+ times. It would be brainless to rate UMvC3 based solely on the difficulty of its hardest trial since the difficulty comes from the quantity of trials rather than the difficulty of any single one.

 

The 100% in P4AU on the other hand requires you to complete maybe 2 trials that may be rated as 6/10 or thereabouts.  So you only have to grind 2 or 3 trials, which is far less taxing mentally than over 100, and will be achieved relatively quickly and easily.  The game is therefore not really worthy of the 6/10, since you only have to apply yourself to and learn 2 combos in total.

 

i dont think the difficulty measures how mental taxing a game is. i would argue that buggy games can be as mentally taxing as hard games. or very long but easy as heck grind can also be very mentally taxing but both dont go into the difficulty rating. the difficulty rating measures how much skill you have to build up to be able to unlock a trophy.
the difference between mastering 100 combos and 2 combos comes out of the combination of difficulty and duration and some reading in the guide

9/10 and 30h -> there is probably one difficult thing

9/10 and 100h -> there is probably a lot of difficult things but to make sure check the roadmap mfor signs of long grinds

like this its a much easier to standardize system because there is less variation in what causes the value to be high or low
i mean wolfenstein 2 or vanquish with a rating of 4 or 5 because both have only one difficult trophy and there is only 1 difficult goal to reach instead of many seems like a system you can trust even less than the current one

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I love this thread and I am in full agreement with both @DrBloodmoney and @DaivRules that the difficulty of getting Platinum has to reflect that of the most difficult trophy. When I'm looking for games that I am considering adding trophy pages for I want to know how difficult the most difficult trophies really are. It's nice if most of the game is a 1/10 Ratalaika-tier visual novel or a 3/10 turn-based RPG with a low skill ceiling, but if the final challenge is doing New York Minute Hardcore combined with Mein Leben in one run with no saves then the final difficulty number has to be 10/10 to reflect that.

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40 minutes ago, AihaLoveleaf said:

I love this thread and I am in full agreement with both @DrBloodmoney and @DaivRules that the difficulty of getting Platinum has to reflect that of the most difficult trophy. When I'm looking for games that I am considering adding trophy pages for I want to know how difficult the most difficult trophies really are. It's nice if most of the game is a 1/10 Ratalaika-tier visual novel or a 3/10 turn-based RPG with a low skill ceiling, but if the final challenge is doing New York Minute Hardcore combined with Mein Leben in one run with no saves then the final difficulty number has to be 10/10 to reflect that.


Exactly.

 

The platinum is the destination.

 

It doesn’t matter if the path to that destination is 5 miles of moving walkway with easy-chairs on it, butlers serving you mojitos and a personal masseuse...

 

...if the last 15 feet is a tightrope over shark infested waters, then actually arriving is gonna take some serious balance - and you can’t have any faith in someone telling you “on average, it’s a pretty easy journey”

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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16 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

As I scrolled through the four hundred and fifty five thousandth thread about 'Platinum Difficulty Rating' for a game on the site and saw the huge differences in some people's personal estimates, it got me wondering....

 

Is there an actual guidance document that the Guide Writers on the site use to quantify the difficulty rating that they apply?

 

Is there a list somewhere of example games for each value, akin to...

 

1/10 - Telltale's Walking Dead

2/10 - Something Else

3/10 - Something Else

4/10 - Something Else

5/10 - Uncharted

6/10 - Something Else

7/10 - Something Else

8/10 - Something Else

9/10 - Something Else

10/10 - Crypt of the Necrodancer

 

...or is this all done purely on the basis of the individual criteria of the specific guide writer?

 

This isn't a complaint or anything, purely a query.

 

If there is a sample list, is it available to see? 

 

Also, if there isn't.... what would people's lists be?:hmm:

 

 

 

 


I’ve written a few guides, and for me, it’s purely subjective. Further, my opinions have changed on some of my ratings, but I can’t figure out how to change the difficulty rating.

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As some people have mentioned, I agree that the difficulty of the hardest trophy should = plat difficulty.

 

The fact that difficulty is subjective is troublesome for rating too. Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax is rated 4/10 for example, and I found it to be my hardest plat to date (Score Attack trophy). Meanwhile P4AU was 7/10 and I found it way easier than Dengeki (still hard though). I really think there should be some kind of voting system where people can see the results.

 

Also, I personally don't think that a time-consuming platinum warrants a high difficulty rating. Super Bomberman R takes hundreds of hours to complete but there is only one challenging trophy in the game, and it's probably a 4/10 at best.

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i wouldnt say difficulty rating is entirely subjective. sure some people would give a game a 7 were other would do 8 or 9 but i think noone would give wolfenstein 2 a 1 or even a 4 (maybe for bragging purpose)

i mean i guess in few cases it is possible that 2 estimations vary alot but thats often not due to it beeing subjective but more due to other factors

When i started dragonage inquisition for the frst time i choose mage and pretty early went a little unprepare into a bigger fight an also saved over my last file outside of the fights area. i got crushed and felt like a 8 is to low for that game.
years later i got back into it. this time choose to play an archer (with the ability to become invisible but i didnt know that when i choose him) and made sure to not fuck up my savefiles and in the end the whole game was pretty straight forward and didnt feel like alot more than ah 5 or maybe 6. if someone said 4 i also wouldnt really feel the need to disagree because there was no point were i really had to practice. something is too difficult? just do something else an come back with a higher level. espacially after thinking a tinny bit about how my party should look like it actually become quiet easy. others that maybe choose their party in the beginning more out of sympathy might feel very different
 

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31 minutes ago, Ich1994-1994 said:

i wouldnt say difficulty rating is entirely subjective. sure some people would give a game a 7 were other would do 8 or 9 but i think noone would give wolfenstein 2 a 1 or even a 4 (maybe for bragging purpose)

 

The worst games for these discrepancies, in my experience, are the Souls games.

 

I have seen people claim they should be a 3/10, or even once a 2/10.

There is no reality in which even Dark Souls 2 (probably the easiest one) is any less than a 5/10 or a 6/10, unless every single exploit is used and Multiplayer abused to the extent that there is no game left.

 

Of course, luckily, most people who have platted those games understand these brags are flat out ridiculous, (and nothing but a painfully obvious attempt to craft a few missing inches of their penis out of gaming 'ability', since actual flesh is unavailable,) but it's disheartening to think that those claims could be making people still playing those wonderful games legit, and struggling with them, want to quit, or feel like less than they are.

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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Platinum difficulty ratings I find are just as useless as estimated time to platinum ratings. I constantly feel that people say they can plat a game quicker than what I do and I feel im going through the game pretty fast.

 

These ratings are best judged by user submissions of course, people who finish Souls games without being hit or killed will obviously rate it a 1 or 2/10 however someone with horrible hand eye coordination might rate an easier VR game a 9 or 10/10. Such a vast difference in skills most of these ratings would be inaccurate until you have dozens or hundreds of ratings to balance out the extreme ends of the curves.

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Hah, fun! If I were to fill out each difficulty rating with a game I've completed myself, it would probably look like this:
 

1/10 - My Name is Mayo (you literally just have to click 1 button)

2/10 - Astro's Playroom (unlike a 1/10 game, there's a (light) challenge)

3/10 - MediEvil (a slightly more difficult game, due to the lack of checkpoints, but still not hard)

4/10 - Shadow of the Colossus (a moderate challenge)

5/10 - Final Fantasy VII Remake (a moderate challenge+, you need to prepare and practice for certain things)

6/10 - Demon's Souls (same as a 5/10 game, really, just a tad more difficult)

7/10 - Steep (requires a lot of practice, and also luck - which is why it's more difficult than a 6/10 game)

8/10 - Crash Bandicoot (same as the 7/10, just more difficult in those areas)

9/10 - Shadow Warrior (a 9/10 requires a lot of patience, planning and to be calm and level-headed at all times)

10/10 - WipEout HD (the same as a 9/10 game, except with truckloads of bullshit RNG, on top of requiring perfected skills)

Edited by Maahniac
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In regards to time taken as a part of difficulty - in  talking about how hard you found a game to plat, it's understandable to consider it as part of the difficulty as the patience or mindset needed for long grinds is a skill of it's own.... however I don't think it should be included in the difficulty rating on a guide as the "time taken" stat is right there as well. If a game is 1/10 but 200+ hours, someone who doesn't like grinds will know from that info that even if it's "easy", it's probably not the game for them as they would struggle with the time requirement.

 

As for the average vs peak difficulty, I agree that the peak difficulty is the important one for guides. If I'm skimming a guide because I want a light challenge game for a bit and pick one with a 4/10 rating only to find myself blindsided by a 9/10 segment/challenge then the guide was a bad indicator of the platinum's difficulty - I'm unlikely to read a whole guide in detail for a game I've not played yet to pick out a trophy that's abnormally difficult from the list. I think it's better to include a disclaimer in the first line of a guide to say if a high rating is due to a specific part, but most the game is much easier.

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