Voting system for plat/100% time and difficulty (instead of guide writer estimates)

[KenpachiDaniel]

That's a nice idea, but it doesn't change very much. I hardly pay attention to the difficulty and hours written in the guides because I already know that is inaccurate, but it will be inaccurate either way.

Also, even with votes, most people won't understand the voting system because most of them don't have standards to compare. I follow some platinum groups and I've seen people saying that Red Dead 2 is a 10/10 because it's time consuming and had a real struggle to get the Gold Rush trophy. And I've also seen people saying that GTA V platinum (not the 100%), is a 2/10. If anyone who have the platinums could vote, it could be more inaccurate than it already is.

People would need to know what makes a 10/10 difficulty. Games that everyone agree that deserves to have this difficulty stamp. Super Meat Boy, Crash 4 or Wolfenstein 2, for example.

For most people, games that are 7, 8 or 9 could be easily a 10, like Metal Gear 2 and 4, Mirror's Edge or Injustice 1 for example, since they never played games harder than those.

The same thing would happen with the easy games. A 1/10 game are games like those japanese novels, My Name is Mayo or the Telltale games that you don't even need to look at a guide, since everything you need to do is play the game until the end. Any game that have any kind of action that the player needs to pay a little attention, or look for something (even if it's obvious), can't be a 1/10.

And changing the subject, the thing that really is missing in the guides that really is important would be a mandatory space to add how many players are needed to boost the multiplayer games.

Edited April 15, 2021 by KenpachiDaniel

[BGriff1986]

40 minutes ago, LOWERCASESUCKS said:

I see what you've done here you clever goose.

 

Luckily though, I voted for votes.

 

Imagine voting for no voting. Yikes.

Y’all up here voting for order when chaos is already on the menu? Yikes! ?

[Speling_Expirt]

1 minute ago, BGriff1986 said:

Y’all up here voting for order when chaos is already on the menu? Yikes! ?

Yup! 

 

Do you think Sony thrives on Chaos? ?

[DrBloodmoney]

2 hours ago, LancashireLad87 said:

 

Some guides especially those that were made many years ago are grossly in-accurate, for instance I've been playing Bayonetta recently and the guide states 40 hours which even for an average player would be excessive. I'm not the only person to comment about that either, it's no fault of the writers but it's not something you can accurately portray. 

I think back then, guides were written on the basis that the player would play the game legit, and only refer casually to the guide at times, or when they got stuck, and the difficulties and times were based on that.

 

Now, the assumption seems to be that the player will follow the guide to the letter, at all times, and will use it as a prescriptive set of instructions rather than a reference.

 

You can see that most pointedly in the guides for Adventure games - almost all of them have a difficulty rating of 3/10 or less, and a time to complete stat that reflects following a walkthrough to the letter, and doing no deviation from the prescribed ’mainline’ path.

take a look at the guide for Day of The Tentacle -  2/10 and 6 hours to plat.

 

Without using a guide, those numbers are preposterous - in fact, even using a guide sometimes (ie. only when you get stuck) they are still absurd - I played that game a bunch when it originally came out, and I reckon it took 50 hours at least to finish at the time. 

Edited April 15, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[MaeveWileyy_]

In most cases, the guides are a benchmark average and are quite accurate. For example, on here the time for Terraria is at 200 hours but I managed it in 135 with about 40 hours afk, the game is heavy on the RNG for trophies so while it took me 135 it could have easily taken well over 300 hours or even 400 hours if you're super unlucky. The 200 hours the guide states is justified.

 

Then you have a platinum that is unattainable, such as GTA V on the PS3. The platinum is impossible for a new player since the "Run Like The Wind" trophy is unattainable since the game feature this is tied to was removed from the game. You can't even use an older version of the game as it is a multiplayer trophy. Yet the guide still states the game as a 4/10. I feel games, where a trophy is completely unattainable, should say so at the very top of the guide, maybe even in bold and underlined.

 

There are games that can take upwards of 60-70 hours but be obtained in under 10 hours with a guide. Most guide writers give the time taken for someone who is loosely following a guide or not at all. Most people don't follow the full guide, they only usually check for missable trophies or if they get stuck at a certain point.

 

Personally, I think the guides should include both the guide author's opinion and the players voting.

[dieselmanchild]

I totally support this! In fact, I was just discussing this in a thread a few hours ago, so I’ll repeat the gist of what I said there.

 

I really love PSNP’s guide format and think it’s superior to other sites in most ways. But one aspect where it’s vastly inferior to the guides on PlayStationtrophies (PST) is in the estimated time to platinum & the difficulty rating.

 

I often find that PSNP guide estimates are way off, and this is because the estimates in the guides are nothing more than the opinions of the author, and doesn’t reflect the reality for the average player. PST uses a community voting system, where users who have finished a game can vote for how long it took them to obtain the platinum, and how difficult it was for them. It then takes the averages based on community input, and those numbers get inserted into the guide.

 

Furthermore, I love that PST allows users to comment in the voting threads. I always skim through these comments when researching a game because you can learn a lot of crucial information about difficulty or time estimates, or other important information that might not appear in the guide.

 

I think adding community averages on PSNP would vastly improve the quality of guides on this site. There is no reason not to really!

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Sounds like somebody just took a class in statistics!

 

I get where you're going with this, but I doubt this would produce any more accurate results than the current system. Time and difficulty are both extremely subjective, especially when you're comparing across many genres and many people who like or dislike those genres. And if you only allow people who've already platted/100%'d the game, you have a self-selection problem where people who like the game or are better at the game will be the only ones voting on it. If you want this to be remotely accurate you have to have a statistically significant number of responses. That probably means you have to open voting to people who haven't finished (or even haven't played) the game, and then how do you filter out the noise?

 

Say MLB 2022 or whatever comes out. 30 baseball fans know all the rules and players, so they rate it 2/10 difficulty and 20 hours. 30 football fans think baseball is slow and boring, so they rate it 8/10 difficulty and 60 hours. You run the math and judge it 5/10 and 40 hours, which is actually less accurate than either of the two groups!

 

Compare that to the guide writer explicitly saying "if you follow this guide it will take approximately X hours and be Y difficult", which adds the context that the "scientific" method is missing.

[sepheroithisgod]

I hope this is changed, I personally use the rarity as the indicator. A lot of guides just seem to put 3/10 as the default lately.

 

Edit: forgot to mention only people at least 70% of the trophies should be able to vote.

Edited April 15, 2021 by sepheroithisgod

[dakk55]

Having a voting-based system would keep things more realistic. For instance, I had one game where it was rated 3/10 but it was really closer to 5/10 due to some trophies being a pain to unlock for me due to my skill leveling being different from the guide writer. I'm sure many people here who platted Street Fighter have their opinions varied on the difficulty as there are some players that live and breathe Street Fighter and can pull off crazy combos flawlessly while others barely can string a combo together.

Edited April 15, 2021 by dakk55

[VaDiMkA]

its a difficult problem...

 

on one hand having a voting system would in theory make the average difficulty and length more fair (?).but when only the one who have the Plat may vote, we still would have the problem with skill.

since (imho) there are two main reasons trophy-hunters stop pursuing a certain Platinum is Time and Skill, this voted average will still be compromised of peoples votes with above average Skillset. 

2 hours ago, PhyrxianLibrarin said:

 

Say MLB 2022 or whatever comes out. 30 baseball fans know all the rules and players, so they rate it 2/10 difficulty and 20 hours. 30 football fans think baseball is slow and boring, so they rate it 8/10 difficulty and 60 hours. You run the math and judge it 5/10 and 40 hours, which is actually less accurate than either of the two groups!

 

or just like this dude said...

 

all rhythm games and racing games are 9/10 for me, but FPS or economy based simulations are easy peasy(e.g. Frostpunk rates at 9/10 and 100 hours.. which is IMHO overestimated, but for console gamers who dont play such games often it may be adequate..)

 

in the end, i think, we here are "professionals", so everyone has their own system, knows what they likes and their own Skills, etc..

[ThatMuttGuy]

I voted who cares because I really don't care either way. 

 

However, I really fucking hate when people make polls and make the poll options lean the way they want them to go. It's stupid and shows immaturity imo. 

[GUDGER666]

As evident on .org difficulty voting is just bad as too many are afraid to admit something was difficult and just vote low to make themselves look better. 

[Darling Baphomet]

7 hours ago, DaivRules said:

LOL that a voting system is science "voting system!!! (science, yay)" and not just collected voter bias.

 

Well, collecting the average of individual biases is likely to be more accurate than relying on one individual bias, I'd imagine.

 

Playstationtrophies has a similar feature where they have automatically made time to plat / difficulty voting threads for every game and it's a handy resource.

[DaivRules]

4 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said:

Well, collecting the average of individual biases is likely to be more accurate than relying on one individual bias, I'd imagine.

 

Well yeah sure, it accurately collects multiple peoples biases instead of one persons bias influenced by other peoples biased and accurately averages those biased scores. But if that accuracy is still based on biases, then neither is better than the other if you're trying to create something resembling scientific output.

 

Depending on how you're trying to use the word "accurate", none of this is going to take the reader specifically into consideration so accuracy doesn't really apply.

[ShinySpidey]

In my opinion, this system is still biased, at least as regards difficulty. Having such a poll  in which people who don’t finish a game cannot vote is biased. Imagine a scenario of an average player who has never tried a souls game. He runs Bloodborne for the first time and he’s not even able to reach the first lamp in Central Yarnham or beat Cleric Beast/Father Gascoigne. 
if he cannot vote, the poll won’t reflect the actual difficulty of this game and the vote will be lower than it should be, especially if there are many people prevented from voting.

 

Then how can you tell whether a vote is genuine or not? 
 

If I’m being honest I would trust way more a guides writer than a poll in terms of difficulty. 

[Valkirye22]

One thing I noticed in regard to the platinum difficulty rating is that it all gets skewed once people adopted the 1-10 scale from what is most probably game reviews.

 

Now, the 1-10 scale i basically the 1-100% and it makes more sense when dissecting the game to wage several pros and cons and give it a score of 75% rather than 3.5 stars (when compared to other most usual system of 1-5 stars).

 

I always looked at the 1-100% scale like it was used in the education system/exam grading. You need 50% to pass (usually), 50% is a D grade / 2 or 4 depending on education scoring system across Europe. By that the platinum difficutly 1,2,3,4 would be trivial - something like those Mayo games.

 

A game that is fairly easy and straightforward but does require some thinking and effort would be a 5/10 - I just platinumed Marquette I would vote it is a 5/10.

 

Harder games would therefore be on the 5-10 scale. IMHO AC:Skies Unknown would be a 7, MGS4 could be an 8, TLOU2 could fall under a 6.

 

tl;dr - I don't the 1-10 system fits so good on the difficulty scale where a 1-5 would be far superior. i.e. Very easy / easy / normal / difficult / extremely difficult platinum

 

just my €0,25

[crowizard]

1 hour ago, dakk55 said:

Having a voting-based system would keep things more realistic. For instance, I had one game where it was rated 3/10 but it was really closer to 5/10 due to some trophies being a pain to unlock for me due to my skill leveling being different from the guide writer. I'm sure many people here who platted Street Fighter have their opinions varied on the difficulty as there are some players that live and breathe Street Fighter and can pull off crazy combos flawlessly while others barely can string a combo together.

Agree, voting based system is realistic. I felt that exactly on street fighter. For me it is 10/10 without a single doubt, and surpasses SMB, Wolfenstein 2, Trackmania, Injustice 1, MK vs DC, Vanquish and all other games i platimued, while there are veterans who can beat it in few days. Game difficulty cant be judged solely on estimated difficulty. Different people, different preferences.

[JoesusHCrust]

It's not clear to me how you could take something as subjective as how difficult it is to play a game, and quantify it in an objective manner. I think a voting system would be better, but it would not be 'scientific' in any meaningful way. Playstationtrophies already offers this function so you can always check there. I generally prefer that website for guides and wotnot anyway as I don't really rate the guide style used on this website. 

[timpurnat]

I always found the rating system on .org kinda useless, because people rate the difficulty based on time and missable trophies as well. In my opinion, the comments in the difficulty thread are way more useful and can give you a better idea of how long and hard the game is than just the plain number. There is also a lot of trolls that just vote 1 or 10 without even playing the game so if said system would be implemented only people with platinum should be able to vote and they should explain their rating, otherwise, it will be as useless as the current one. But again, I don't see it being implemented here any time soon anyway  

[BlindMango]

I wonder if it would turn out like PST.org where every single game ends up being rated a 3/10 lol

[AyeOfReach]

Why not 2 votes for difficulty since most people nowadays are hypocrites and cannot be trusted especilly guide writers / video guide makers who just want people use their guides.

 

If admin select honest members as "trusted members" and their votes are separate from everyone else like metacritic.

 

Or if difficulty is described as a "range" between 2 numbers insted of just one number like Yooka Laylee difficulty's ranging from 3 - 6 for example (3 is min, 6 is max) instead of just 3 (which may not be seen as a sincere opinion) i know cause that can't be the regular player opinion.

[DrBloodmoney]

Here is my honest suggestion for guides:

 

The guide writer assigns the difficulty, but, in every guide, they put two examples of the same genre in it, for context.

 

ie:

 

BLOODBORNE:

Difficulty - 6/10

Harder than - Dark Souls 2

Easier than - Sekiro

 

or

 

TITANFALL 2:

Difficulty - 7/10

Harder than - Call of Duty Modern Warfare

Easier than - Wolfenstein 2

 

(Those are totally off-the-cuff examples to show a format - please don’t come at me about whether the actual values are right)

 

 

That way, even if the writer obviously found the game much easier than the reader would (or much harder), the reader can still gauge how hard they would find it personally, based on how difficult they found the sample games.

 

?‍♂️

 

Obviously, it would still be contingent upon the guide writer to select appropriate games for the samples - games of the same genre and of reasonably similar brackets to avoid this:

 

LITERALLY ANY GAME:

Difficulty - WHATEVER/10

Harder than - My Name is Mayo

Easier than - Crypt of the Necrodancer

 

?

 

but if that was a requirement in the guide format, I think it would go a long way to helping readers to contextualise the assigned values. 

Edited April 16, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[Baker]

Good idea. I always check .org if I want to know what the difficulty of a game is. I don’t even pay much attention to the outcome of the votes but I look more at the comment section where people who completed the game tell how it was. I would like to see that on this site too.

 

So all we have to do now is wait for Sly to implement another good idea from the community because that’s what he loves to do. Wait...?

[PatinumNumemon]

I'd say keep the guide rating, because I personally believe they know what they're talking about (most of the time). However, we should also have an open poll where you can vote the difficulty from 1 to 10. In the end, neither are reliable as your skill could be much better/worse than the guide writers, while polls can be skewed by people who think My Name is Mayo is 10/10 because they broke their finger while playing it along with others who think Fall Guys is a 1/10 because team modes, Hex-a-Gone trials and glitches helped them obtain Infallible. 

[Kal2210]

I would enjoy votes, particularly regarding estimated time. I don't care quite as much about difficulty though i still think that's a reasonable vote as well. I still go check the other site before I start every game to get an estimated time. I find the average guidewriter's estimate to way off a lot of the time, typically an underestimate. The voted estimates have definitely helped me get a more realistic idea of what I'm getting into from my personal experience.