Platinum Difficulty Ratings - A Question

[ladynadiad]

Personally I think a plat should have multiple ratings rather than just one full rating because one rating really doesn't do a good job of saying what that difficulty entails.  So I'd probably say it would be better to do ratings like this:

 

Overall: The games overall rating which should just be a simple get an average of the numbers or total out the numbers much like reviews do

Skill: The skill needed.  1 probably would be fitting for stuff like VNs where no skill is needed and then 10 for stuff like Super Meat Boy, Crypt of the Necrodancer, etc.

Grind: How much of a grind does the game need?  Games that you get the plat for beating the game (or before you beat the game) would be a 1, stuff like Star Ocean IV and Mugen Souls would be a 10.

Length/Playthroughs needed: 1 would be something you can finish in one sitting like a Ratalaika game, 10 would be something where you need multiple long playthroughs or a ton of short playthroughs

RNG: 1 for games with no RNG factors, 10 would be highly dependent on RNG and most people need hundreds or thousands of attempts for some of the RNG elements

Missables/collectables: How much is missable or requires heavy guide use for collectables.  1 would be zero missables and 10 would be a you'll need to be following a guide very closely and saving often to ensure you don't miss a thing.

[Joe Dubz]

57 minutes ago, starcrunch061 said:

It is absolutely absurd to me that anyone would rate the plat difficulty by averaging the difficulty of the trophies. I'm thinking, e.g., of Pier Solar. Almost every trophy in that game is incredibly easy to get (though possibly a bit tedious). They don't even take that long...

...

...but the Eternal Slip minigame, which makes up two trophies, is pretty much the gate that will keep a player from the platinum. It's completely different from anything else, trophy-wise. 

 

If a game has every trophy rating 7 out of 10 difficulty, I have no problem saying that this is a tougher plat than a game that has a single trophy that's 7 out of 10 difficulty, and a bunch of 2 out of 10's otherwise. But the deviation should be small, not large. The latter game deserves a 7, but the former might merit an 8.

This was the perfect example I was looking for!! The rest of Pier Solar feels like a cakewalk compared to Eternal Slip! Had a written a guide for that, I definitely would have rated the difficulty based on Eternal Slip alone, since that is the plat blocker for most.

 

OP having written several guides myself, I always debate with myself on what difficulty to pick. I don't think it makes sense to average the difficulty, but to choose the difficulty based on the hardest trophy or trophies, when you can breeze through the majority of most games otherwise. With that being said, I try to consider how difficult said trophies would be for the average gamer, not myself personally. Either way, it never fails and someone disagrees with what I decide on! I am always open to adjust it a notch or two tho, depending on how others perceive it as well. 

[DrBloodmoney]

You know....

 

there actually might be an incredibly simple solution to all of this back and forth about how 'platinum difficulty' should be determined...

 

Just a thought, but...

 

Would anyone actually object, if the 'Difficulty' tag in guides was amended, to simply read 'Highest Trophy Difficulty'?

 

I mean, realistically, that is the info most people are interested in, right?

[Segimon]

GREAT thread

My criteria:

 

1-3/10 difficulty: I should be able to play and platinum the game with ease/ with no more than 2-3 retries in a specific area: Example: Any ratchet and clank game, Nights of azure 2, etc.

 

 

 

4/10 difficulty: Games with difficulty specific trophies that aren’t too bad (Modern Warfare for an example), also games with bosses, challenges, and time trials that may require multiple attempts, but shouldn’t take longer than 30 or so minutes to pull off per challenge (E.g. Nights of Azure, Yooka Laylee, Goat Simulator)

 

5/10 difficulty: Games with difficult challenges that may require an hour or two worth of attempts (E.g, Judgement, A hat in time (Seal the deal DLC), Crash 3, MW 2 remastered (DX challenge))

 

6/10 difficulty: Games with challenges that may take me 3-4 hours to pull off each (E.g. Super Monkey Ball banana blitz HD, WWII, Sonic Mania, Crash 1)

 

7/10 difficulty: Games that I consider to be mostly skill dependent, but games that I found myself to quickly adapt to (E.g. Furi, Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed)

 

8/10 difficulty: Skill dependent games with a few challenges that took me 8-15 hours to pull off (E.g. Arkham Knight Challenge DLC)

 

9/10 difficulty: Same as 8/10, but with multiple difficult challenges rather than a few that take me 8-15 hours each (Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled)

 

10/10 difficulty: Games that require 15+ hours per difficult challenge alone. Games I find impossible to plat (Mighty No. 9, Mamorokun Curse)

 

 

[scemopagliaccioh]

Most of the difficulty ratings are a combo of subjective  views + hype,  so it's nice that we try to create a line in order to combat the author of the trophy guide's experienced view, compared to the noob trying  to snag the platinum,  however, I feel that it needs to be tweaked further, I'm going to use several games, mostly Deus ex Mankind Divided to get my point across.

Now, Deus ex is an ultra rare sitting at  2.53%, an high rarity that makes it an ultra rare, but in truth, it is actually an easy game that, can't blame them, most people just dip out at the beginning, however, it happens to warp around several of the possible guidelines written in the thread.

It has a difficult  related trophy that only unlocks after the first playthrough, this also applies to most Sony games, where they add mg+ and hardest mide, hardest mode and ng, are a COMPLETELY different challenge than hardest and ng, Deus blocks mg+ on the hardest mode, but  it changes nothing in its case.

Said hardest mode  in Deus, is also pretty much pointless, as even im the easiest mode, you're much better off stealthing your way, as gunplay is horrible, there are no difference in stealthing in easy or hardest mode, yet the presence of said trophy shoots the difficulty  up by a lot, not to mention, stealth is also encouraged by other trophies like foxiest of the hounds.

Missables are another problem, the game has 50+1 trophies, 40 of those are missables,  along  with the difficulty, this combined with the fact that you need a guide for  some collectibles and dialogue, and also the shitty breach mode, makes it jump to 8/10, but it's hardly that. So,  why are they missable in the first place? 8/10 of the trophies  sound like a big deal, but that's just because you need to  jump around the area, after a bit of story you're no longer allowed to go there, or night arrives in Prague, changing the paradigm, and yet, most of these trophies can be obtained in a matter of minutes,  with you even able to re-load the game to a previous state to avoid any story or customisation  blunders, you don't really need to apply that much for these trophies,  except for the audios, since they are 60 to collect, but you got a guide for that.

My suggestion, would be to add time as a difficulty indicator, time is commitment, I'm levelling up Tidus in FFX to reach and beat Penance, just as I'm training to learn Batman in Injustice GAU, so that I can spam a 40% combo, footsie, anti zoning and all  that shit, so that I could easily beat kids online and get my 100 wins trophy, sure, one is harder than the others, but both are time commitments, and they should be judged as well, similiar with missables, how much time have I wasted in not getting a specific skill related trophy in Deus  ex? Not really that much.

That, and if harder modes do indeed CHANGE the core experience of the gameplay, which Deus ex does not.

[Quink666]

Biggest problem is people rating games to low because they want people to think they are gaming MLG gods. 

 

1: Telltale games with no real puzzle or death

2: Telltale games with puzzles and death from failed QTEs

3: Easy games like Man if Medan or Little Hope

4: Most easy AAA games that does not require a hard difficulty play through. (Marvels Avengers)
5: This is where games will start to require some planning and patience to plat (The Last Guardian)

6: Games now require skill and timing (Sekiro)

7: Games with perma death that requires you to beat them on hard difficulty (Outlast 2)

8 & 9: Games like Max Payne 3 and Wolfenstein 2

10: God tier gamers have to dedicate quite some time to achieve these platinums (SMB, Necrodancer and Ratalaika games)

 

Also plats that take a long time does not mean they are hard. A lot of people seem to think that. But everyone would rate games differently but this site really need a guide of some sort. There are Ratalaika games that are very easy but they sure as hell aren’t a 1/10. 

This site should just let the platinum achievers vote on the difficulty. Other sites allows anyone to vote, but to get the most accurate result only platinum achievers should be able to vote. Pretty sure this would make some sensitive souls upset but it would be the best way imo. 

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by Quink666

[Joe Dubz]

Just my 2 cents but I don't think how long a plat takes should have any bearing on the stated difficulty! Time consuming does not equal difficult. 

[grimydawg___]

I think the guide writers rate based on their personal experience.  I don't there's a scale or anything like that.  I wouldn't have a scale based on a game, as everyone's experience is different.  I go by my own experience.  

 

I don't know @Quink666 Where do you see where people think they're gods?  An example I think a game is vastly overrated is Street Fighter V.  I personally didn't think it's a 10/10.  I rated it a 6.  There aren't trials/combo-related trophies where there are 1-frame link combos and it was also easier to rank up because you can play with your best character and have fun that way, whereas on the SSF4 games, there are the aforementioned 1-frame link combos and you had to hit a certain rank with the default 35 characters in the game, which is real hard to do, unless you boost.  I didn't boost because I'd rather play 700-800 matches than 1400-1500 if you had a boosting partner.  So, online was more challenging and more rewarding for me.  So, I give my reasons.  That's me, though.

Edited April 7, 2021 by grimydawg___

[DrBloodmoney]

1 hour ago, grimydawg___ said:

I think the guide writers rate based on their personal experience.  I don't there's a scale or anything like that.  I wouldn't have a scale based on a game, as everyone's experience is different.  I go by my own experience.  

Surely a scale is exactly what is required, specifically because everyone’s experience is different?

 

If there is a defined scale that everyone can see, with enough examples of games and where they lie on it, they can make a much more informed conclusion about how easy or hard they personally would find a game, based on how they feel about the difficulty of the sample games of similar genres on the list.

 

eg. If they are great at FPS, they will know that, for example CoD is a sample game with a 5, but they themselves find it easier, say, a 3, so if they see a new FPS that is ranked as a 7, they have a context, and can know “well, probably a 5 for me.”

 

I’m not sure I’m doing a great job of explaining it, but you see what I’m getting at? 

 

It also gives a better context for the guide writer, as they can say “well, CoD was a 5, and this was a little harder, but not as hard as this other FPS that is an 8, so I am duty bound to make it a 6 or 7”

 

It means they can’t go too far off the reservation and make it a 3 just to swing their e-peen around, or a 10 just because they hated a grind in it or something.

Edited April 7, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[AihaLoveleaf]

I've only been here a few weeks and even I've seen a few people by now with 100%/Plat on difficult games rate them way easier than the general consensus for the game. It's one thing for someone to knock a point or two off if they're good at the genre, but when the game is collectively agreed upon as a 9 and someone comes in like "nah it's not that hard it's a 5 at best" then I find that's a bit much. Fortunately it's pretty easy to tell when someone is just swinging their e-peen around. 

[JohnlMatrix]

In my opinion the difficulty of a game should be determined by its hardest trophy because the difficulty of said trophy has to be overcome to obtain the platinum.

Also, for my understanding, time doesn't equal difficulty. A 300 hour long game shouldn't warrant a high/higher difficulty solely because of its lenght.

 

That being said I understand people who say "the grind for game xy is mind-numbing and tedious and the difficulty lies in dealing with that monotone and boring gameplay".

However, my opinion still stands as described above.

 

A grindy game can be conquered by chipping away at it for quite some time. You cannot fail. You can just get bored. Regarding skill you can try and try again and you might get good enough to overcome the challenge but usually there is no surefire way. You have to force your way through without seeing a progress bar, you basically have to feel the progress and let that motivate you to push further.

 

I still don't understand why GTA IV's plat is or was rated at 10/10. Sure, some things can be annoying, especially the multiplayer grind. But that is just long and tedious. Maybe it glitches on you and you have to start over. Regardless, if boosted, I find the MP to be not difficult, just really tedious.

 

When a buddy of mine and me went for "Auf Wiedersehen, Petrovic" and "Wanted" we also had a fun time, suffering through it together, beating time requirements on multiplayer missions in ridiculous ways, i.e. by slamming the helicopter onto the ground to land, hoping for it not to explode upon impact. Reason for this was there was simply no time for a normal landing in the mission ending marker.

[AJ_Radio]

7 hours ago, Trumpet_Boi_208 said:

Plus, the website didn’t allow StrickenBiged to rate Titanfall 2 based on the hardest trophy, but they allowed Vanquish to be rated based on the hardest trophy. This inconsistency makes it quite difficult to properly rate a game’s difficulty without getting criticized for it.

In my opinion that Gauntlet trophy in Titanfall 2 is extremely overrated in terms of difficulty. You’re basically spending a couple minutes running through a course doing parkour while throwing bombs at fake enemies. Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered 1 & 2 both have trophies for getting a good score in training grounds. All three of those trophies took me around three hours each to finish, and I’m basically average at first person shooters. Certainly doable for most anybody who enjoys these games. 
 

Vanquish Challenge 6 is difficult. Unlike the training courses which are for the most part stagnant (they’re the same every time), Challenge 6 has many enemies that are often unpredictable, you can’t replicate the same run every time. You definitely have to know Challenge 6 inside and out, I had to spend over 12 hours trying to beat this challenge and avoiding those two bogeys in Wave 5 is a true test of skill. One mistake can easily hurl you all the way back to the beginning. Most people will take 12 - 20+ minutes beating this challenge, while the world class speedrunners have posted times of 3 - 5 minutes. 
 

Contrast that with Titanfall 2’s course which is short, and both CoD training courses which require you to beat them in well under a minute each. 
 

Of course this is subjective. For games like Super Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter V those are definitely 10 out of 10 games for me. They require a lot of skill and absurd amounts of practice. The trials alone would take me ages and I would probably need a fighting stick to do them all.

[cckerberos]

Individual skill can definitely be a factor (my favorite example of this is Need for Speed, which the guide writer rated a 2/10, 15 hours needed... okay, so why does it have a platinum rate of under 30%, then?), but I also feel that a lot of people essentially grade difficulty on a curve that is heavily skewed towards the low end. They seem to be very hesitant to say that something is higher than a 6/10.

 

I suspect some of that is because that's the point at which you're admitting that you found something difficult. Which is easy to do if you're talking about Wolfenstein II or Super Meat Boy, but when it's a 7/10 game? That might open your gaming skills to criticism. But I also think it's because there's an increasing level of granularity at the top of the scale. For whatever reason, people feel the need to differentiate between 8s, 9s, and 10s in a way they don't do for the lower ratings. 

 

Anyway, that's why I feel that 4/10 is essentially the default difficulty score here, even though it technically means below-average difficulty.

[ProfBambam55]

couldn't we just get rid of platinum difficulty rating altogether and solve this debate?...it's an argument like how accurate metacritic scores are...conspiracy theorists vs the virtuous...haha...

 

or instead of a score that encompasses everything in one, divide into agreed upon subsections and then have the average of those displayed...that way at least people could judge where the difficulty lies...example:

 

GTA IV: 4.6/10

 

story: 4/10

online/co-op: 8/10

button inputs: 4/10

mindless grind: 7/10

rng: 0/10

hardest trophy: name

 

this would also be debatable so why not have it be some longa$$ user poll for each category that calculates the averages...haha...

 

and couldn't people just scan trophy rarities to get an idea of difficulty before even consulting a guide?...not saying it's 100% accurate but if the rarity is low usually a guide writer will mention in the roadmap what is especially difficult if there is anything...

 

tl:dr...if 50% say yes and 50% say no we either change nothing, come up with new ideas, or compromise...haha...I'm cool with letting those who care decide...

[DaivRules]

6 minutes ago, ProfBambam55 said:

couldn't we just get rid of platinum difficulty rating altogether and solve this debate?

I support this suggestion. 

[AihaLoveleaf]

3 minutes ago, ProfBambam55 said:

and couldn't people just scan trophy rarities to get an idea of difficulty before even consulting a guide?...not saying it's 100% accurate but if the rarity is low usually a guide writer will mention in the roadmap what is especially difficult if there is anything...

Can't speak for everyone but I start by looking at the guide rating, then the trophy rarities, and then finally the forum for that game. Adds a couple minutes extra work but at least I'm aware of buggy or super difficult trophies in the event that the guide underrated the game for some reason.

[ProfBambam55]

16 minutes ago, AihaLoveleaf said:

Can't speak for everyone but I start by looking at the guide rating, then the trophy rarities, and then finally the forum for that game. Adds a couple minutes extra work but at least I'm aware of buggy or super difficult trophies in the event that the guide underrated the game for some reason.

I think whatever a person's approach to earning trophies is is fine...I was kind of suggesting that without a difficulty rating people would likely just have read roadmap as one of their steps if they were concerned about a game's difficulty...

 

I've don't think I've checked any game's difficulty rating aside from gta iv, I almost never check rarities unless I've already earned a trophy and I get curious, but I do almost always use a guide unless the guide author writes "you don't really need a guide for this game"...I can't say I've felt mislead in difficulty after comparing the guides on here and .org for a given game so I don't really get the need for a platinum difficulty rating...but that's just me therefore my vote on this is nonexistant...I was actually just driveby posting above...I'm here for the dragon age 2 guide and to see if anyone needs help with fly the co-op in the sessions...haha...

Edited April 7, 2021 by ProfBambam55

[LancashireLad87]

A lot of people have made the point that a games difficulty should be based on the hardest trophy, the problem is how are you going to quantify that for every game out there, especially games that have multiple platinum breakers such as Wipeout. If you ask someone they might say that Beat Zico is the hardest trophy whilst others might say Elite Campaign Legend or even Zone Zeus. I personally had the most trouble with Arcade Perfect because of playing mirrored tracks on the hardest difficulty.

[DaivRules]

Just now, LancashireLad87 said:

A lot of people have made the point that a games difficulty should be based on the hardest trophy, the problem is how are you going to quantify that for every game out there, especially games that have multiple platinum breakers such as Wipeout.

 

We don't have to do it for every game out there. We only have to do it in the version the guide that shows the difficulty is written for.

[DrBloodmoney]

16 minutes ago, LancashireLad87 said:

A lot of people have made the point that a games difficulty should be based on the hardest trophy, the problem is how are you going to quantify that for every game out there, especially games that have multiple platinum breakers such as Wipeout. If you ask someone they might say that Beat Zico is the hardest trophy whilst others might say Elite Campaign Legend or even Zone Zeus. I personally had the most trouble with Arcade Perfect because of playing mirrored tracks on the hardest difficulty.

 for cases like that, @starcrunch061 actually made a good point that I hadn’t considered - namely that the whole may actually be greater than the sum of the parts.

 

For example, if a game has multiple tough trophies, that would all individually constitute an 8 or a 7, the overall should potentially be higher than even the highest single one - i.e. a nine - given that you are not just having to do a very hard thing, you are having to do a pot of them, and that has a certain cumulative effect on the overall experience.

 

After-all, while I remain adamant that the overall should never be lower than any individual component trophy, there is certainly no denying that a game with a full, rock-solid list of, say, 8/10 individual trophies is a more exhausting and difficult task to conquer than a relatively easier game that just has one or two hard trophies causing a ‘difficulty spike’.

Edited April 8, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[AJ_Radio]

7 hours ago, LancashireLad87 said:

A lot of people have made the point that a games difficulty should be based on the hardest trophy, the problem is how are you going to quantify that for every game out there, especially games that have multiple platinum breakers such as Wipeout. If you ask someone they might say that Beat Zico is the hardest trophy whilst others might say Elite Campaign Legend or even Zone Zeus. I personally had the most trouble with Arcade Perfect because of playing mirrored tracks on the hardest difficulty.

 

You're talking about the Wipeout Omega Collection right? Wipeout HD can no longer be done if you didn't get the online trophies before early 2018.

 

I have seen the games and they look downright brutal.

[Trumpet_Boi_208]

On 4/7/2021 at 6:13 PM, AJ_Radio said:

In my opinion that Gauntlet trophy in Titanfall 2 is extremely overrated in terms of difficulty. You’re basically spending a couple minutes running through a course doing parkour while throwing bombs at fake enemies. Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered 1 & 2 both have trophies for getting a good score in training grounds. All three of those trophies took me around three hours each to finish, and I’m basically average at first person shooters. Certainly doable for most anybody who enjoys these games. 
 

Vanquish Challenge 6 is difficult. Unlike the training courses which are for the most part stagnant (they’re the same every time), Challenge 6 has many enemies that are often unpredictable, you can’t replicate the same run every time. You definitely have to know Challenge 6 inside and out, I had to spend over 12 hours trying to beat this challenge and avoiding those two bogeys in Wave 5 is a true test of skill. One mistake can easily hurl you all the way back to the beginning. Most people will take 12 - 20+ minutes beating this challenge, while the world class speedrunners have posted times of 3 - 5 minutes. 
 

Contrast that with Titanfall 2’s course which is short, and both CoD training courses which require you to beat them in well under a minute each. 
 

Of course this is subjective. For games like Super Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter V those are definitely 10 out of 10 games for me. They require a lot of skill and absurd amounts of practice. The trials alone would take me ages and I would probably need a fighting stick to do them all.

I’m not saying that Titanfall 2’s time trial was hard for me (I did it roughly 30 minutes after beating the campaign). However, in the comment section of the guide, Stricken says that the guide team encourages people to rate guides based on an average, rather than the highest trophy, but Vanquish does not abide by this standard. Even the guide writer says that every trophy in the game, excluding Tactical Challenger, was easy to do, which would have lowered the difficulty considerably if it were rated by an average. I’m just pointing out that there is sometimes a double standard when it comes to determining guide difficulty.

 

2 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

 

You're talking about the Wipeout Omega Collection right? Wipeout HD can no longer be done if you didn't get the online trophies before early 2018.

 

I have seen the games and they look downright brutal.

The person is talking about Wipeout HD. The Omega Collection does not have Zone Zeus or Arcade Perfect. The Omega Collection platinum is definitely doable, if you can tolerate the annoying AI.

Edited April 9, 2021 by Trumpet_Boi_208

[Gwendly]

On 4/7/2021 at 10:02 AM, starcrunch061 said:

 

I'm not as sold on the "truth by democracy" or "averages are the best!" angle. pst.org has had these polls in effect for years, and I feel I've gleaned little info from the poll itself (though when people comment on their vote, it becomes more useful).

 

But I do agree that when someone is an expert in a genre, they tend to underrate the difficulty, and when someone is a trailblazer for a game with little info, they tend to overrate the difficulty.

 

Which is why I was suggesting it as a supplement ; the guide would have an author score and a community score. My guess is a lot of times the scores will be similar. A 6.8 community rating is the same as a 7 by an author or a 7.4 by the community. But if you have a game where the author is saying it's a 3/10 and the community says it's a 8/10 that may give someone looking at a guide a more complete picture.  

[DrBloodmoney]

On 07/04/2021 at 2:35 PM, Gwendly said:

It would be nice if those who have platinumed the games had a poll where they can vote for difficulty and time and then have those aggregates displayed together with the authors numbers in the guide. By only allowing those who have the plat to vote it hopefully cuts down on the troll votes , but yes those will likely happen too.

 

This could alleviate some of the guides where the author is particularly well versed in a genre , or maybe even the fact that they didn't have a guide to go off to start with and getting the platinum with some guidelines is much easier. 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Gwendly said:

 

Which is why I was suggesting it as a supplement ; the guide would have an author score and a community score. My guess is a lot of times the scores will be similar. A 6.8 community rating is the same as a 7 by an author or a 7.4 by the community. But if you have a game where the author is saying it's a 3/10 and the community says it's a 8/10 that may give someone looking at a guide a more complete picture.  

 

 

I actually like your idea of having a 'guide writer's rating & a 'community rating' - but with a couple of caveats:

 

1.

Firstly, I think a defined scale would still be a useful thing for the construction of both - i.e. people can rate the game, but when doing so, I still think that whatever page they clicked on to rate it should present them with a site-wide, site-endorsed scale of metrics and sample games, upon which to base their rating, so everyone is working from the same baseline.

 

I know that I personally find it quite hard to assign a numeric value to something like difficulty absent of any contextual value, but it is a lot easier to simply ask myself "Is this game harder or easier than this other game?" and work it out from there.

 

2.

I think if community ratings were to be a thing, limiting it to only people with the platinum is too narrow - I personally would make it anyone with 50% of the trophies, or maybe, everyone with a 'B' rating or above, or something like that.

 

The reasons being twofold:

 

Firstly, just because a game is too tough for someone to complete, doesn't mean they are unqualified to say so. If they tried and failed, then saying "This was too tough for me, and I have other games of the same genre that are 8/10's on my profile, therefore this is a 9/10 or 10/10" is completely valid information.

 

Also, keeping it to people who have already Platted the game would skew all the votes, at least at the beginning of implementation of such a system, to people who finished the game a long time ago, and not people who still have a fresh memory of it.

I think you want the input of people who are actually in the thick of it, playing it at the time

We all know, memory is a funny thing, and it tends to gloss over the bad things, and only remember the good - it's just part of the design of the human brain.

 

I mean, let's face it - if you took a poll asking the mothers of toddlers whether they would go through the pain again to have another child, the number might be quite high....

but it would be a lot lower if you polled women currently experiencing a contraction in their tenth hour of labour ?

 

Edited April 9, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[Arcesius]

I haven't had time to contribute to this discussion, even though I think it is a good one to have, and I'm glad that so many people are participating as well

Now, I will probably forget a couple of points I wanted to adress, but let's see: 

 

First of all... In my opinion, the only, and I mean only thing that should contribute to the difficulty rating is how much skill the player needs to develop / is required by the player to achieve the platinum. The grind, the RNG, the length... all of that does not matter and is ultimately covered by the "length estimate" of the guide. My favorite example is Oh...Sir! The Insult Simulator. You are basically just pressing X, but the trophies are so RNG-heavy that the platinum estimate is 100+ hours. However, the RNG doesn't make the game more difficult... it's basically My Name is Mayo with added RNG...

If you were to consider the RNG factor for the difficulty estimate, you would have redundant information that is already covered by the length estimate. 

 

 

Further, I have seen a comment that the scale 1/10 is too narrow, and that's where the problems come from. I actually think it is the opposite. I think the scale is too wide. Let me make an example... Personally, if I had to use a 1-10 scale, I would rate the following games I've played as follows: 

• Super Meat Boy: 8/10
• Trials Fusion: 9/10
• Crypt of the NecroDancer: 10/10

Now, anyone can disagree with the above, telling me that SMB is at least a 9/10, or Trials Fusion isn't harder than SMB, or whatever. However, what every single player that has finished those three games can agree upon is, that they are all fucking tough to complete. Does it matter whether they are 8/10 or 9/10? Isn't the thing that matters that they are all very skill-intensive? 

 

For example, again using games I've completed myself, who would disagree with the following categorization?

• Easy: Oxenfree, Undertale, Inside, A Way Out, Detroit: Become Human,...
• Moderate: Final Fantasy X, God of War 2018, Horizon Zero Dawn, Transistor,...
• Hard: Nex Machina, Titan Souls, Furi, Hollow Knight, Action Henk,...
• Extreme: Super Meat Boy, Trials Fusion, Warhammer: Vermintide 2,...

That's why I don't use a scaling as such anymore for my own ratings and in my Trophy Checklist. Instead, I use self-designed gauge thingys, for example: 

 

 

"But Arc, that's just a scale from 1-5"... Sure it is, but to me, it doesn't "feel" like a numbered scale... ?