DLC % logic?

[DrBloodmoney]

1 minute ago, starcrunch061 said:

 

On this, we can agree...so long as you accept all my terms. 

 

NEVER!

[x7eight]

Dlc trophies are inherently rare (difficulty, time, cost, etc are irrelevant tbh), not sure why the site has to be different about it. The trophies are on everybody's lists regardless.

 

The simplest solution is usually the best.

Edited May 19, 2021 by x7eight

[Arcesius]

1 hour ago, starcrunch061 said:

Again, we could dance forever on how the site chooses to compute these things. Average rarity is probably my greatest pet peeve of this entire site (and if DLC trophy rarity was changed as you mention, that combined with average rarity would probably drive me away from here).

 

I mean, this thread is about DLC rarities, but I don't oppose the idea of discussing how to achieve more accurate statistics in general.

 

Many people, myself included, weren't here when the original discussion happened. I think it's a discussion worth having (again), even though things seem less likely to change at all nowadays than it did a couple of years ago.

 

 

48 minutes ago, starcrunch061 said:

In fact, I probably hate it more than most of you. I'm a mathematician (no fooling), and to this day, I can't figure out why we used the geometric mean. I know what it is, I know how it's computed, I know how to estimate it...and I don't know why it tells us anything good, other than it gave lower numbers than what we initially had.

 

So am I, as you maybe know, and not knowing why that method was chosen is what bothers me the most. It is completely arbitrary and incomprehensible to me.

 

 

Quote

But as I said, it was a compromise, and it was accepted.

 

It's still shit ?

Edited May 19, 2021 by Arcesius

[Rally-Vincent---]

I can't understand how basing DLC trophy stats on the number of base game owners is supposed to make stats "more accurate". It's the opposite. If only five people own a DLC and all of them completed it, the rarity should be 100% all (DLC) owners. Basing it on the number of people that theoretically could own the DLC is just as arbitrary as the current system. @djb5f has it spot-on:

 

 

3 hours ago, djb5f said:

They don’t have the content to unlock it.  Sure, those who own the base game can purchase the DLC.  But so can so many others, including those who don’t own the base game.  It does not mean you should include them.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

I'm including everyone who has the DLC attached to their profile, and therefore has an 'incomplete' game on their profile.

 

 

The fault in the system is the attachment to the base game. PSNP displays DLC trophies seperately on the game's trophy page. If it did that on the main account page, there'd be no doubt if owners of a seperate entry should count to towrds the numbers of another entry.

[FawltyPowers]

Just a quick recap of the history. Please correct me if I've missed anything.

 

Method 1: Originally all DLC trophies were calculated using Achievers / Base Game Owners.

 

This was in place for years and it changed for the principle reason that almost every DLC trophy was either Very Rare or Ultra Rare. Whilst this is technically correct (especially as you are counted as a base game owner just by installing the game and not earning a trophy) it bothered most people that the rarity for DLC made the base game look trivial in comparison. In fact having an Ultra Rare trophy became trivial in itself when Ultra Rare trophies were pretty much handed to anyone who purchased DLC content.

 

Method 2: DLC was then changed to Achievers / DLC Owners to try and make Ultra Rare feel Ultra Rare.

 

Again in place for years, a DLC owner can only be established once a trophy has been earned. This turned things on its head making rarity for DLC content worthless, only one trophy in a DLC, the rarity was 100%. This then completely dropped Ultra Rare numbers so they then became more prestigious.

 

They are the only two methods using actual figures to calculate some kind of Rarity, however, the only true way of getting an accurate statistic would be Method 3: to have an install flag for DLC on your profile, if this has been set to true then you would be counted a DLC owner in which you could then have Achievers / DLC Owners.

 

The first two methods got argued over so many forum posts, over pages and pages, do you want to use method one which although technically correct just leads to people with hundreds and hundreds of Ultra Rare trophies just because they purchased DLC or Method 2 where Ultra Rare trophies feel more prestigious but also makes DLC achievements relatively worthless.

 

On about page 11 of one such discussion, @ProfBambam55 suggested Geometric Mean. Yes, it's a made up figure but it actually gave some DLC trophies Ultra Rare status and could arguably be closest to the correct truth of Method 3 should Sony ever incorporate such a flag.

 

That about sums it up for those that missed all these years of discussions. Obviously I can't speak for the powers that be but If you're either trying to argue for Method 1 or Method 2 to be re-introduced, it's highly unlikely it will ever happen because it's been talked to death.

Edited May 19, 2021 by FawltyPowers

[starcrunch061]

That is my (perhaps faulty) recollection as well.

[DrBloodmoney]

20 minutes ago, FawltyPowers said:

Snip

Very comprehensive ?

 

It’s all in the great book:

 

“And lo, as punishment for the ‘Method 2’ people complaining about ‘Method 1’,

And thereafter, 

The ‘Method 1’ people complaining about ‘Method 2’, 

A noxious plague known as ‘Method 3’ was set upon them,  

to infect all,

corrupting and salting their statistics forevermore,

ne’er to be questioned,

as their wroth had begotten their own ruin.”

 

-Book of PSNP

Ch.12, Verse 8

Edited May 19, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[Helyx]

Ultra rare trophies are cool and all, but y'all ever had a wild animal accept food right out of your hand?

[Arcesius]

50 minutes ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

I can't understand how basing DLC trophy stats on the number of base game owners is supposed to make stats "more accurate". It's the opposite. If only five people own a DLC and all of them completed it, the rarity should be 100% all (DLC) owners. Basing it on the number of people that theoretically could own the DLC is just as arbitrary as the current system. @djb5f

 

It really depends what you want to measure. If it is the rarity among 'the players that earned at least one trophy' then what you write is accurate. But that number does not equal the number of DLC owners, be it free or paid DLC. It's not even a criterion used to compute base game rarities. 

 

It would also be the only stat on this page to follow that line.

 

If, like everything else on PSNP,  you want to compute rarity based on the users whose stats and profiles are affected by having the DLC on their profiles, then you gotta use all base game owners.

 

Both measure something somewhat meaningful. The current system, however, does not. 

 

 

45 minutes ago, FawltyPowers said:

Just a quick recap of the history. Please correct me if I've missed anything.

 

Thanks for that ?

 

 

Quote

On about page 11 of one such discussion, @ProfBambam55 suggested Geometric Mean. Yes, it's a made up figure but it actually gave some DLC trophies Ultra Rare status and could arguably be closest to the correct truth of Method 3 should Sony ever incorporate such a flag.

 

Now, what I'm asking for is ANY evidence that that statement is true. It could be closest to the truth? Was any argument mentioned in the original discussion that supports the claim?

Edited May 19, 2021 by Arcesius

[DaivRules]

3 minutes ago, Arcesius said:

Now, what I'm asking for is ANY evidence that that statement is true. It could be closest to the truth? Was any argument mentioned in the original discussion that supports the claim?

 

You've now read 7 pages of arguments in this thread, why haven't you gone back and read the original discussion(s) by now instead of at least twice asking for someone to just give you information you can find on your own?

 

 

[Arcesius]

2 hours ago, DaivRules said:

 

You've now read 7 pages of arguments in this thread, why haven't you gone back and read the original discussion(s) by now instead of at least twice asking for someone to just give you information you can find on your own?

 

 

 

Because no one has linked me that conversation and since I wasn't here back then I don't know where everything was discussed. 

 

Also, I don't believe that there is such an argument to be found. 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Arcesius
orthography with the phone is...

[DaivRules]

3 minutes ago, Arcesius said:

 

Because no one has liked me that conversation and since I wasn't here back the I don't know where everything was discussed

 

Also, I don't believe that there is such an argument to be found. 

 

https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/32032-trophy-rarity-question/

https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/45187-geometric-mean-for-dlc-trophies/

https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/24623-dlc-rarity-change/

https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/24707-dlc-rarity-poll/

https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/46882-free-dlc-rarities-tweaking/

 

[ProfBambam55]

not much to add that hasn't already been said...

 

just a reminder that geometric averages are not made up numbers, they're just averages...in this case a ratio...I think what people were looking for in the previous discussion was a middle ground...several averages were tested to try and please both extremes, calculating base owners for dlc as well and counting only people who earned one trophy as being considered owners...because of the huge difference between base game owners and people who we know own the dlc (by achieving a trophy) it is very difficult to find a middle ground mathematically...almost as complicated as proper rarity leaderboard formulae...haha...

[Arcesius]

2 hours ago, ProfBambam55 said:

just a reminder that geometric averages are not made up numbers, they're just averages...

 

Oh for sure. We are not arguing that the numbers are made up. The computations are exact. But what is arbitrary is to even use the geometric mean to try to guess the number of DLC owners... It's just as if someone would have found that formula by chance... 

 

Oh wait: (Thx to Daiv for linking me the thread)

 

On 10/18/2016 at 10:43 AM, ProfBambam55 said:

-and then there was this : P = ((T2)/(B*D))0.5...dude i have no idea what that means but i vote you as the guy to figure out the situation mathematically...edit: ah, multiply them together and do the square root...i like how you've written it for this case...how do the stats compare?...working on figuring out how the geometric mean equation applies to the totals...could it be?...could it be?...

 

?

Edited May 19, 2021 by Arcesius

[Rally-Vincent---]

2 hours ago, Arcesius said:

If, like everything else on PSNP,  you want to compute rarity based on the users whose stats and profiles are affected by having the DLC on their profiles, then you gotta use all base game owners.

 

That's not what I'd want. I'd want to check rarity against actual owners, not against the maximum numbers of owners possible. If that is not possible right now - that's what I take from the discussion -, I'd rather take the error margin at the other end. We know that anyone who earns a DLC trophy owns that DLC. That number would be much closer to the actual number of DLC owners (so including those who own, but didn't play it yet) then the difference between the base game owners against the DLW owners, wouldn't it?

 

So while the numbers still wouldn't be correct, I imagine they'd be less false than at the base game owner end. If my thought process is wrong, I am willing to change my mind. Are there number how many base game owners on average buy all the DLC?

 

[zid2016]

Only accurate rarity stats that can be calculated are for the base game trophies. I think current method used for dlc rarity is better than including all base game owners. All base game owners method just artificially inflates the rarity trophies.

[ImStylinOnYaBro]

Imagine all the ultra races that could be earned instead of QQ in here.

[madbuk]

43 minutes ago, zid2016 said:

Only accurate rarity stats that can be calculated are for the base game trophies. I think current method used for dlc rarity is better than including all base game owners. All base game owners method just artificially inflates the rarity trophies.

How is it artificial if it’s the most accurate representation? 

[zid2016]

54 minutes ago, madbuk said:

How is it artificial if it’s the most accurate representation? 

How is it accurate when majority of the sample size includes non dlc users. Its just bumping up rarity using non dlc player base.

[da-Noob123]

I love stats so this thread has pleased the analytical side of my brain a lot. So I will throw in my 2 cents cause why the hell not.

 

First, I am a completionist and yes it would be cool to get a large boost to my UR collection plus it would technically be the only way to accurately calculate how many people have the trophies. Frankly, when you look at 100% versus Platinum owners the difference is often drastically different. Some call it buying UR trophies, but I don't buy DLC  to get rare trophies, I buy it to complete my game, the rarity is just a nice bonus.

 

Second, I understand the current method is to help show the quote unquote true rarity based off people who have earned trophies in the DLC. However after reading through this thread it does have several issues ranging from single trophy DLC's to somewhat arbitrarily picked numbers for total DLC owners. There are just too many variables nowadays for it to work: DLC in a GotY edition should be calculated by the total number of owners as they all should own the DLC (in most instances), there is a ton of free DLC mucking things up, and ultimately at this time we have no way of determining the actual number of DLC owners only formulas to try and guesstimate. So I believe we should use the base game owners for calculating DLC rarity, besides isn't that what Sony does?

 

Just thought of this after looking at my trophies. Take Hitman 2 with it's episodic structure. I have a rank B on it but I have barely done any of the DLC which is over a hundred trophies, a game like this the DLC trophies should have a significantly larger impact on the rank seeing how few trophies are in the "base game."

Edited May 20, 2021 by da-Noob123
Added more

[AJ_Radio]

No idea how this thread blew up to seven fucking pages. A lot of philosophical nonsense being thrown around in this thread.

 

On 5/18/2021 at 3:40 PM, TimeLordCrow13y said:

 

This. The rarities being accurately UR for many DLC trophies wouldn’t affect “leaderboard integrity” at all. Might make some people who think URs should be reserved for only a certain type of game mad, but it wouldn’t affect anything else.

 

Meanwhile the current leaderboard is basically useless with: A: so many people buying cheap shovelware 30 min or less Platniums and B: Many of the profiles of the site not updating unless manually updated (which if you do to too many profiles can cause you to be unable to sync your own (for non-Premium users), so why would most chance it)?

 

I literally just ran across a profile yesterday that was showing their last game played before 2020 (I think it was showing 2017) and when I manually updated, they had several trophies earned in 2021. 

 

I think rarity of DLC trophies actually being accurate would annoy a lot less people than the other two things I mentioned. 

 

Of course, I could be entirely wrong. 

 

From what I understand PSNProfiles used to track accounts and they were automatically updated. Sly Ripper made a change to where most accounts had to be manually updated in order for them to be listing the most recent games they have on them.

 

All of the accounts I own that aren't a Premium Member I have to manually update.

 

This may be a good reason why a lot of old PS3 and early PS4 games have far more game owners than a lot of more recent PS4 and PS5 games. Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Red Dead Redemption 2 should have a LOT more game owners than what PSNP is telling us.

 

The change makes the leaderboards even more useless, because a majority of them aren't even updated regularly anymore.

 

On 5/18/2021 at 4:03 PM, Elegy said:

If people don't want DLC trophies to be rare because they are easy.. well start buying the DLC and putting in the time to earn those "freebie" trophies; the rarity will naturally decrease.  In my experience, a good percentage of DLC trophies are harder and more time consuming than the base game trophies.  Ninja Gaiden 3, Ghost of Tsushima, Batman Arkham City, Need For Speed 2015, every Uncharted game with DLC, DOOM, Nioh, RAGE and RAGE 2, Final Fantasy XV, Destiny 2, Dante's Inferno... and these are just off the top of my head.  The trophies are often UR because no one wants to take the time playing through games 2 or 3 more times, doing harder difficulties or mastering game mechanics.  Price of DLC could be a deterrent for some but even when the DLC is free or packed in with the game people still don't bother to do it unless its trivial like Astro's Playroom DLC so I don't really buy that argument anymore.

As others have said the rarity doesn't equate to the difficulty of the trophies, there is only a correlation.

 

I fully agree.

 

Props to those who have any of those games finished, Batman Arkham City was for me a complete chore to do all those challenges. However, in the case of DLC such as that in Days Gone, where it is free, the price tag isn't a good argument.

 

Most of the time, people don't want to put in the effort of getting a New Game Plus trophy or doing DLC that is more difficult than the trivial stuff such as that in Astro's Playroom. They just want their easy platinums, which describes most of the people ranked high on the leaderboards.

 

 

23 hours ago, kikataa said:

There are a lot of problems with trophies, and I think that ratalayka games are one of the biggest, because people give money literally just because of the platinum trophies. I'm sure over 90% of the people who play these games wouldn't play them if they didn't have platinum.

And really last.
If we follow the logic that the % of DLC should be reduced because not everyone has DLC, then shouldn't ratalayka platinum not count for whole platinum, because it is a joke that popped in 30-40 minutes.
Of course, this problem is supported by Sony, they are the ones who can not allow such games to have platinum, but it will be against them because then no one will buy this games from their store. It's all money, It's a pity for gamers to be subjected to this, I don't think gaming it's going in the right direction.

 

The shameless stacks is another good indication.

 

I don't care if people stack Assassin's Creed or The Walking Dead, because they still have to play through the games from the beginning to earn the platinums. With Ratalaika, you're literally playing just 10 - 20 percent of the actual games, because you get a platinum after you do that much.

 

If they were games that offered a challenging trophy, or were those non-platinum 100 percent only titles, these people wouldn't even consider buying these games at all. That is why people from Hakoom to Izemenzi I can't fully respect because they just bought their way to the top of the leaderboards.

 

So the leaderboards to me are completely worthless.

 

18 hours ago, Arcesius said:

This continues to be your only point in favor of the current system. That it is "better than it was in 2016" (and I don't even agree with that). 

 

Let me put some numbers just to make it clear how arbitrary the PSNP DLC statistics are, and how PSNP has NOT the best system in place right now. 

 

Asume a game has 1000 owners. Assume further that 300 of those people own the DLC, and that, say, 250 of these 300 have popped at least one trophy from that DLC. 

 

• Method 1:
  The first method is to use all base game owners to compute the rarities of the DLC trophies. So in the example above, you would use 1000 as the number of owners.
  This is obviously my preferred method, as it would add consistency to how things work here, namely: 
  • DLC trophy lists are part of the games trophy list, independently of whether you have to pay for the DLC or if its free. 
  • Your own completion percentage on PSNP is affected by DLC, even if you don't buy it. 
  • The 100% rarity of a trophy list also is computed using all base game owners. 
     
• Method 2:
  This is the method you keep referring to. You only use the people that have earned at least one trophy from the DLC to determine the trophy rarities. As you point out, it leads to at least one trophy sitting at 100%, but at least, while it is still inconsistent with regards to how other metrics are computed, it uses a measurable quantity to compute the statistics.
  
  In the example above, you would use 250 people as the owners. 
   
• Method 3:
  The formula that is currently being used since 2016 or whenever it was introduced. With this method, the rarities are computed as if 500 people owned the DLC. You understand why this is so bizarre to me? It is a completely arbitrary number that is being used in a site that otherwise tries to display accurate statistics among its members. 

 

I'm mostly okay with Method 1. Method 2 is the choice I would go with, the big issue with this is how the formula is being calculated. I honestly don't recall anybody posting the actual formula for how this website computes DLC trophy rarity, maybe @MMDE or @DrBloodmoney have since they both seem to have the most knowledge in regards to mathematics, apart from yourself of course.

 

The bullet points in Method 1 were already here as long as I can remember. The forums here date back to 2011, but I wasn't around at that time so I can't comment on whether the formula was widely different or similar to Method 3 which is being used now. DLC trophy lists were already included as part of the games trophy list. Your own completion percentage was already affected when I started hunting back in 2015. The 100% rarity however, in contrast, only included the number of people who earned that trophy in the DLC. Which goes back to my point on Batman: Arkham Knight, there are several DLCs with only one trophy attached to them. All of these trophies had a 100 percent rarity. These did not make a completely arbitrary number until late 2017 when Method 3 was introduced and implemented.

 

 

18 hours ago, Arcesius said:

I never posted anything related to TLoU2 or Cyberpunk, but I guess you were generalizing. Yes, I shared my opinion about exploiting Hollow Knight with other people, and of course some agreed with me, some didn't. That's what this forums are for. Not for forcing others to see things the way you do, but for sharing opinions and discussing about topics we are passionate about.

 

I never said you posted anything on either game. I was making a generalizing point. Discussions like this never really go anywhere because there is a sampling of trophy hunters who prefer one method, while the other half prefers the other method.

 

If you look at this deeper, this begins to draw comparisons to a typical political discussion. Two sides debating and arguing with each other, with a bunch of people in the middle who can't side with either.

 

18 hours ago, Xylobe said:

 

I've been playing the PS3 version of Atelier Rorona Plus recently. It, like many games in the Atelier series, also has a "DX" release on PS4. The Plus and DX versions of the game are identical in both content and trophies, but the former has a 6% platinum rate, and the latter nearly 22%. If a trophy's rarity is an indication of how much effort it takes to obtain, how can it vary that wildly between two releases of the same game?

 

Re-releases and remasters almost always have skewed results. The same goes for rather niche games. Vanquish is a difficult platinum on both the PS3 and PS4. The remastered version on the PS4, which has better resolution and a consistent 60 FPS, has a notably higher rarity platinum rate. This is because most of everyone who bought the game and played it on the newer system had already played the game in the past. If they especially know what they're doing the second time around, then obviously the trophy rarity percentages will reflect that.

 

That still doesn't really account for the challenges, which are still difficult regardless of what version of Vanquish you're playing.

 

Then there is niche stuff like Angry Video Game Nerd I & II Deluxe. There is barely a few hundred game owners, and considering these games have been on Steam for a long time, most people buying this already knew what they were getting into.

 

This is a big contrast to stuff like Red Dead Redemption 2, which is only not mainstream but includes many people not knowing entirely what they're getting into.

 

Difficulty was never really a good indication of trophy rarity and the effort it takes to beat something. I've played some crap niche games that were really easy with a bunch of rare trophies, whereas Dark Souls is generally around a 5 to 8 out of 10 in difficulty, despite a lot of trophies being common to uncommon in rarity.

 

 

10 hours ago, starcrunch061 said:

I guess people want to buy UR trophies in the same way they currently buy plats. The race to the bottom continues...

 

This will continue to happen regardless of how the DLC percentages are computed.

 

If I was truly willing I would buy a bunch of shitty indie games on the PS4 with very low trophy percentages. Everybody bitches about Ratalaika and Breakthrough Gaming Arcade, but they all ignore the indie games with ultra rares that virtually nobody plays.

 

That's not to say we don't like challenges, you almost earned the platinum in Atari Flashback Classics Vol 2 which is a remarkable achievement. However there is something to be said when you're just padding numbers, whether it is Ratalaika or a bunch of games at sub one percent completion just because they look a little impressive.

 

There's barely anybody anymore that has a genuinely honest trophy profile that didn't just buy a few platinums, whether it was ultra rares or some Ratalaika games. A rarity leaderboard in this sense is almost just as worthless as the current leaderboards. You're just buying trophies on the other end of the spectrum.

 

 

10 hours ago, starcrunch061 said:

This thread was started by someone who dislikes the current system. Naturally, it will attract people who dislike the current system, and most of those people don’t dislike it because they think the current rarity percentages are too low.

 

For example, I dislike the system, but I wouldn’t have bothered posting here, except that people started to suggest that all the “good” points were in favor of scrapping it altogether, and using base owners. That’s. Not. True.

 

Making this long post even longer, I guarantee you that if, today, the system changed so that base game owners was the number used the DLC rarity calculation, you would get plenty of pushback from the other side (assuming that most of them didn’t just vanish altogether).

 

Honestly at this point there's nothing to be gained here. I wasn't active when both sides were present arguing about the DLC rarities sometime in 2015 or 2016. Many DLC trophies were at 100 percent rarity, but the completionists out there weren't happy because they felt that the high trophy rarities weren't a good indication to how hard or time consuming a DLC was.

 

The current method that @Arcesius posted earlier favors the completionists and the people who hunt ultra rares. It's most definitely a compromise, there are people on both sides who can't agree with it, but like you said the bickering was kept to a minimum.

 

All things considered, I have learned to be content with the current system. If someone out there wants to make a series of spreadsheets in determining how DLC should be calculated in the future, I'm all ears. But I just find that rather fruitless. It's just far too much time and work to be working on a project like that, and knowing that a small minority of people are the ones who have any real care in this, I have no real foot in this debate.

 

So I'm done posting here. I wish to take no part in this back and forth volleying.

Edited May 20, 2021 by AJ_Radio

[Briste]

This has been a fun read. It's interesting to see those with a mathematical way of thinking compared to those that don't. I do have to applaud this thread not devolving into name calling or anything....it's been a pretty cordial discourse. I see a parallel between this thread and a current phenomena I've seen in social media about what matters more, emotion or fact? As a relatively unemotional being, I tend to side with those that rely on facts.

 

In this discussion, the argument for using all base game owners to determine rarity seem to be centered on the fact of what rarity actually means, where those that are arguing against, value how that rarity makes them feel. I personally think it should be all base game owners to determine because I agree with the idea that every trophy that is on that game's page is a part of the overall game, and therefore every potential trophy to be earned for that game should be compared to that number.

 

While I believe that is the correct way to determine the actual rarity of the trophy...I 100% get where the other side is coming from with their 'feeling' of what that rarity means. I also will use rarity as one gauge on the potential difficulty of a game. Sometimes I am surprised that some games/trophies are UR considering how 'easy' they were to get. The subjectively 'easy' ones for me tend to be ones that require some sort of grind. Other than patience and perseverance....there is nothing 'hard' about those UR that are on my profile. Some games have UR trophies because the mechanics are annoying, but nothing about the game is hard. It again comes down to patience and perseverance.

 

For example, several of my UR trophies come from Space Hulk. Not a single one of those trophies is 'hard' to get, however the game is such garbage that most people don't have the patience to sit through it and get all the trophies. I try to be as much of a completionist as I can, so I sat through that game and got them all. While sometimes the rarity of a trophy has to do with how hard it is (look at any trophy list on @Arcesius profile lol), often times it is not.

 

I think it all comes down to what you use rarity for to figure out which side of the fence you stand on. In general, it seems those that feel some sort of emotion with what the UR stands for, do not want it to be based on the total base game owners where those that just want statistical accuracy do. Either way, nothing is going to change any way lol

[closertim]

Dlc rarity should be calculated by base game owners.  It's simply that easy.  

[mekktor]

1 hour ago, Briste said:

In this discussion, the argument for using all base game owners to determine rarity seem to be centered on the fact of what rarity actually means, where those that are arguing against, value how that rarity makes them feel. I personally think it should be all base game owners to determine because I agree with the idea that every trophy that is on that game's page is a part of the overall game, and therefore every potential trophy to be earned for that game should be compared to that number.

 

What does rarity actually mean? For the base game, it is the ratio of those who completed a trophy to the those who attempted the trophy. This gives the rarity a strong association with the effort required to get the trophy (time, difficulty, enjoyment, etc), and for many, this ends up being the main takeaway from the value, and a litmus test for whether it's working in other cases where we cannot work out the true rarity.

 

So what does it mean to attempt a trophy? For the base game, it's easy, if you started the game, you have the list on your profile, so you are counted as having attempted all the trophies. For the DLC, it's tricky, as there are multiple ways to define it, and we don't have all the information we need. Some people think if you played a game, and it has DLC trophies, then you should be considered to have attempted those trophies, regardless of whether you own the DLC, or if the DLC was even release when you played the game. Why? Because Sony decided DLC trophies are linked to the base game list.

 

Wait a second... When did we ever listen to Sony about this stuff? If we cared what Sony thought, would this website even exist? Isn't the whole point of this site to take Sony's data and process it how we want? We don't follow Sony. Rarities existed on here before they ever did on PSN. Sony follows us.

 

So why don't we define it how it makes the most sense? Well, what is rarity? The ratio of those who completed a trophy to the those who attempted the trophy. Ok, and how many people attempted the DLC trophies? How many people started up the DLC? Well... shit. Sony doesn't tell us that.

 

So what do we do? We try our best to create a method that gives us some value to call the rarity.

 

Method 1: Use the base game owners. Basically redefine the rarity so it doesn't matter if the trophies were attempted or not. Why? Because Sony says so (who cares what Sony says?), because they are "real numbers" (but still the wrong numbers), because we like ultra-rares (well then earn some trophies that are actually ultra-rare).

 

Method 2: Use the "DLC owners" as defined on PSNP, which is those who have earned a trophy in the DLC. Why? Because they are "confirmed numbers" (but still the wrong numbers), because they fix the ultra-rare problem (but create new problems on the opposite side of the spectrum), because they are sometimes very reasonable looking values (and sometimes very not).

 

And then we have Method 3, which is currently used. Some crazy person decided to average the above two methods and see what happens. And guess what? It just kinda worked. Yes, they were made up values, but they were closer to the true value than either of the two older methods. How do we know this? Because it was tested in cases where we can know, for example by comparing the PS3 version of some DLC trophies (using the geometric mean) to the PS4 edition where those trophies are included on the disc (using the base game owners).

 

And so, this mysterious method which apparently gave numbers that are closer to the true value was accepted as a compromise. Because when everyone got together and saw how well it worked, they all voted and the overwhelming majorit... no wait. Because Sly decided he liked it lol. Good enough for me!

 

It's not all fact vs emotion. Yes, there is plenty of emotion involved. But the "fact" of what rarity actually means is also clearly disputed.

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by mekktor

[Rejim]

Don't get what the fuss is about rarity, since in the end there is no leaderboard for that on this website.

 

- On one hand, you just take DLC owners into account and most of trophies become common. So what? It would actually give a fair representation of how many have it and how hard it would be to get said trophy if you buy said DLC (if it's around 90% then easy, but I'm sure some of them would still float around below 50% or 30%, and then you would know that these ones might be trickier)

DLC lists with just one trophy will get f'd up but are there that many?

 

- On the other, you take all base game owners and you get a lot of UR. So what? The entire site functions on base game owners (even though I'm not on par with that - but that's me) so why not these as well... people mention a lot would buy into those for 'free' UR (first of all, trophy rarity is unimportant for leaderboards so they'd still be better off buying plats and secondly, if they do go buy them, then rarity will lessen more and more)

 

- And then we have the actual system where it's an intent of getting in between, trying to please and appease both sides ?

 

Since I would be more on a total separation of DLC lists from base game, I'd opt for the first solution, but since PSNP works on its entirety (except that) with base game owners, then let's do it all the way. I'm usually not keen on having to replay an entire game just to get a single trophy and boost my %, won't do it for a single UR trophy either. Have a lot of games I actually want to play and discover (even if some are Ratalaika - they also add to a gameplay experience - even if totally against their mindset to give the plat for just completing 20/50% of the game, makes no sense to me) . When and if I get tired of those, I might come back to said DLCs, with or without URs

 

p.s.: love how people throw around the word accurate thinking it can be subjective ?