Difficutly / Time Voting System

[MonaSaxPayne]

33 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

You're ignoring the actual reasons already given for others don't think this adds any value

 

and you're ignoring that 75% of ppl who voted in the poll think its beneficial

 

do u think that all the posters in here who think it's a bad idea DIDN'T vote?

[dieselmanchild]

On 2022-05-17 at 0:22 PM, MonaSaxPayne said:

 

thats because the site is dead

 

statistically, the more ppl that contribute to a vote, the more accurate the "average rating" will be

 

which is the point of polls. to get an average of the masses. not to be correct for every individual 

Agreed. And PST being dead nowadays is exactly why PSNP needs this feature.

 

If you look up any game on PST that is from the PS3 era or early in the PS4 life cycle when the site was at it’s peak, you’ll find polls with dozens (sometimes hundreds) of votes and invaluable comments throughout the threads. As such, I’ve found the time/difficulty estimates to be extremely accurate in most cases. About as accurate as you can possibly get when voting on something that is so subjective.

 

Any newer games though have at most a couple of votes which as others pointed out just isn’t a large enough sample size to accurately reflect anything. It’s about as useless as basing these ratings solely on a guide author’s opinion, who probably has more knowledge and expertise than the average player picking up the game for the first time.

[steel6burgh]

The other site that has votes for difficulty usually has about 5 to 10 people who have voted and that number really doesn't represent a large enough pool to be reliable and I have often found it to be less accurate than a single person writing a guide who puts a lot of time and thought into the decision.  If there was a certain amount of votes needed to validate or post the rating like say 100 or 200 than possibly it might be better but something like that would definitely need to be implemented and still might not work.  Having a difficulty rating from 5 to 10 people who are flexing trying to say what an easy time they had will never work. I also find on the other site some people give  games a ridiculously high difficulty rating like as if to say if I can't do it in a few attempts than it's a 10/10.

 

I'd encourage anyone who thinks this is a good idea to go and look at some of the community polls on playstationtrophies.org. and see for yourself how ridiculous some of the polls are.  It gives you the breakdown of how many people voted 1/10 and so forth through 10/10.  Usually they have less than 10 votes and usually half the people will say easy and than the ones who can't do it say it's a 10/10.

[The Alchemist]

I would find some sort of poll system to be more beneficial than not. The PST system isn't perfect -- between a lack of votes on some games, to troll votes (1s or 10s) -- but generally speaking I find such polls to be helpful as most users probably are honest about it. But more than just glancing at the votes, I find the comment section in such threads to be more useful as users often leave helpful tips and tricks, and some users go into detail on why they voted what they did (I know I do), and this can also be really helpful. I don't really see the harm in something like this tbh. It doesn't have to be taken for gospel, but some information (even if not entirely accurate 100% of the time) is better than nothing. 

[sepheroithisgod]

I think getting a group vote can be a very helpful metric. Will it be some full-proof system? No, of course not. As people have stated, many do not vote with real answers and do intentionally try to alter the average by voting much higher or lower.

 

The only thing I would really like to see with this system is that a player must obtain the platinum to give a rating. As many have mentioned PST, there are no requirements. Thus, someone who never played the game would be eligible to vote, which doesn't add anything useful.
 

 So I definitely support the change (doubt t it will happen), but it's welcome.

 

45 minutes ago, HusKy said:

No need for vote system regarding time, as this information can be now extracted from PSN data. With large enough dataset, you can get some pretty accurate numbers.

Wouldn't this not work because people may play well past getting the platinum? I'd imagine this is very common for games with multiplayer.
 

[DaivRules]

49 minutes ago, MonaSaxPayne said:

 

and you're ignoring that 75% of ppl who voted in the poll think its beneficial

 

do u think that all the posters in here who think it's a bad idea DIDN'T vote?

 

I never ignored anyone who addressed me or my response. I'm responding to the individual who started to engage in a discussion, dismissed the premises I laid out, and inserted their own arguments in place of mine.

 

 

[MonaSaxPayne]

19 minutes ago, sepheroithisgod said:

I think getting a group vote can be a very helpful metric. Will it be some full-proof system? No, of course not. As people have stated, many do not vote with real answers and do intentionally try to alter the average by voting much higher or lower.

 

The only thing I would really like to see with this system is that a player must obtain the platinum to give a rating. As many have mentioned PST, there are no requirements. Thus, someone who never played the game would be eligible to vote, which doesn't add anything useful.

 

DEFINITELY agree with this

 

I’ve said as much multiple times over on PST

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DrBloodmoney]

38 minutes ago, sepheroithisgod said:

The only thing I would really like to see with this system is that a player must obtain the platinum to give a rating. As many have mentioned PST, there are no requirements. Thus, someone who never played the game would be eligible to vote, which doesn't add anything useful.

 

If such a system were ever put in place, I'd agree with this - and actually go a little further.

 

I'd say that for someone to be able to give a reliable measure of a game's difficulty, they not only need to have platinumed the game in question, but they need a certain measure of context under their belt too.

 I'd argue that really, for someones vote to be useful, they would also need to have some minimum number of total games platinumed -  as well as some (smaller, but still significant) number of other games platinumed within the same genre.

 Say, for example, 25 games total, and at least 4 or 5 others within the same genre. 

 

That might seem excessive, but to explain, I'll use myself as an example:

 

 

I've really enjoyed Slay the Spire, which I'm reasonably close to finishing up now (I think!).

 

I have quite a few games platinumed in total, and will likely have that one soon enough...

...however, even when I do get it, I still don't feel I'd be qualified to gauge the difficulty.

 

Why?

Because it's my first Deck builder. 

I've never played another game in that genre.

 

I know how hard I found it, relative to other games broadly, but have no idea where it sits within the spectrum of the genre to which it belongs - and I think it would be wrong for me to speak to its difficult without that context.

 

Whatever my own opinion is - and I do have one -  it would likely be useless to anyone else, as it lacks an adequate basis for comparison, if you know what I mean.

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[HusKy]

37 minutes ago, sepheroithisgod said:

Wouldn't this not work because people may play well past getting the platinum? I'd imagine this is very common for games with multiplayer.

 

With large enough data set, not a problem. Just like some people would vote 1000 hours even though the game takes 10. Outliers can be filtered out easily.

[sepheroithisgod]

4 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

If such a system were ever put in place, I'd agree with this - and actually go a little further.

 

I'd say that for someone to be able to give a reliable measure of a game's difficulty, they not only need to have platinumed the game in question, but they need a certain measure of context under their belt too.

 I'd argue that really, for someones vote to be useful, they would also need to have some minimum number of total games platinumed -  as well as some (smaller, but still significant) number of other games platinumed within the same genre.

 Say, for example, 25 games total, and at least 4 or 5 others within the same genre. 

 

That might seem excessive, but to explain, I'll use myself as an example:

 

 

I've really enjoyed Slay the Spire, which I'm reasonably close to finishing up now (I think!).

 

I have quite a few games platinumed in total, and will likely have that one soon enough...

...however, even when I do get it, I still don't feel I'd be qualified to gauge the difficulty.

 

Why?

Because it's my first Deck builder. 

I've never played another game in that genre.

 

I know how hard I found it, relative to other games broadly, but have no idea where it sits within the spectrum of the genre to which it belongs - and I think it would be wrong for me to speak to it's difficult without that context.

 

Whatever my own opinion is - and I do have one -  it would likely be useless to anyone else, as it has no basis for comparison, if you know what I mean.

 

That's an interesting concept. I think the poll would be more effective if the group of voters was more selective.

This would prevent a lot of the issues with people voting wild numbers in the polls. As you could revoke their right if they start saying a game takes 1,000 hours when it takes 20. Make it something people have to apply for and be approved.

 

Could even ask those people to upload pics of their final save file time as proof (PSN is pretty inaccurate some of the time).

 

However, this is another system that would have to be implemented, in addition to just the polling, so again, I doubt anything comes of this, but maybe I'm just pessimistic?

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

1 minute ago, sepheroithisgod said:

 

However, this is another system that would have to be implemented, in addition to just the polling, so again, I doubt anything comes of this, but maybe I'm just pessimistic?

Nah dude, just realistic

[DrBloodmoney]

2 minutes ago, sepheroithisgod said:

I doubt anything comes of this, but maybe I'm just pessimistic?

 

Realistic, I expect - I wouldn't hold your breath for anything of this magnitude being implemented at this point ?

[MonaSaxPayne]

talk about killing a mosquito with a cannon 

[Mellenthin]

1 hour ago, DaivRules said:

 

And statistically, how often do those ratings deviate from what a guide author designated themselves, including the times they've taken into consideration feedback and adjusted?

 

For someone who accused others of being biased, your posts are full of bias.

 

You're ignoring the actual reasons already given for others don't think this adds any value, and replacing it with twisted arguments we didn't make. When you said others must be dishonest and severely biased, you're the one who's shown both of those qualities.

 

 

The few guides I've used in the last year or so, fully or partially, are very well made and more or less spot on. However, as helpful as they were, those guides are mostly covering collectibles and is of no real consequence when it comes to difficulty. Regardless of that, you can always improve upon things and I gave you a good example regarding Pillars of Eternity which cost me dearly.

 

Another example why you want a poll section on PSNP would be Hard Reset Redux. A game rated a 9 on PST yet supposedly doable within 25-35 hours. Going by the guide author you're already shaking in your boots but it's ironically in the comment and voting section the most valuable information is found.

 

Newer games where there's almost no info found would be Space Invaders Forever and R-Type Final 2. There's some on TA and some excellent videos on YT. It's truly annoying and completely backwards to be forced to write a miniguide smack in the middle of an existing post or to create a new one whenever you want to share something. A voting system is particularly useful in these cases where no guides are in sight and information is scarce.

 

Regarding your remark about bias, I'm very much biased indeed, just like you are and everybody else. That said, I don't think I'm beyond giving as detailed and objective information as possible when someone need pointers, and I think the same of most fellow gamers I've seen or met on PST and here.

 

To wrap this up, my first reply to yours were, in my humble opinion, perfectly in line where I met your arguments with valid ones of my own. My sarcastic reply to BM was directed at him and nobody else. I honestly don't think I've ever seen such a snide and pseudo-psychological comment in all my days here, and that say something.

 

Anyhow, if you ever decide to implent a voting system, perhaps you could make it so it's visible for everyone what a certain person votes on and on top of that make it obligational to clarify with a significant amount of words. With a much more transparent voting system, I'm certain something really nice would come out of it.

 

55 minutes ago, dieselmanchild said:

This is one feature this site needs very badly. I vote hell yes.

 

I pretty much use PSNP exclusively now, but I still use PST for one thing - accurate time/difficulty estimates. The PSNP estimates are based on one person’s opinion and as such, they’re often off the mark by a few points. Sometimes wayyy off the mark. I’ve seen many other people remark about this over the years and complain to me about how poor the guide estimates are in many cases.
 

A polling system based on community feedback of time/difficulty is simply far more accurate as it takes into account dozens of opinions and calculates an average based on that data, and will always more accurately reflect the experience that an average gamer is likely to have.

 

I also really like the fact that along with their vote, people on PST are allowed to leave comments elaborating on why they voted the way they did. I often spend time scrolling back through several pages reading comments on these threads, as it really helps paint an accurate picture of what you can expect to deal with when jumping into a game. It’s an incredibly helpful feature for someone like myself who does a lot of research on games before diving in.

 

Someone clearly is better with words than I am. Unless you still don't get my point, Daiv, this is basically what I'm advocating.

[ObsiEez]

2 hours ago, MonaSaxPayne said:

 

and you're ignoring that 75% of ppl who voted in the poll think its beneficial

 

do u think that all the posters in here who think it's a bad idea DIDN'T vote?

Most of the people who voted yes just vote yes without thinking about how it would affect the site. Most people who voted no realize the draw backs of including such a system & deem that the value it would add wouldn't out weight the amount of problems it'd cause.

There are 2 ways to go about a voting system.

A, it's built into a forums & has a bot go through the games & makes a thread for voting: This would absolutely FLOOD the forums with threads or voting since there are so many games that would need voting threads. Pretty much everything that isn't a voting thread would get drowned out in the recent activity feed. You could make it so those threads don't show up unless you look for them then. But in that case, how would people find it? Would people even care enough to look if it isn't put right in front of their face?

B, it's built into the game page where you click on the button & it'll change the stats, similar to the average completion %'s on the page. But this would require TONS of memory & resources just for such a small feature that at the end of the day, wouldn't bring much value to the table. When there are plenty of other aspects of the site in desperate need up upgrades, this would be a complete waste of the resources.
 

& besides, just to further prove that a voting system would only be used by such a handful of people, the ratings you can give guides? People BARELY use those as it is, so what makes you think the people will go out of their way to vote for the time/difficulty for it if they won't even rate the guide they used to get the platinum in the first place? Then you have the voting trolls who would vote completely out of sync to what they actually think just to have a laugh which people already do with guide ratings as well. Would I be opposed to having this feature or be upset if it ever did become a thing? No, not at all. But when it takes so much time & resources for such a small thing that at the end of the day, doesn't add much value, it just isn't worth it.

You can already calculate rough time estimates by looking at how long people take to platinum the game on average

[MonaSaxPayne]

2 minutes ago, ObsiEez said:

Most of the people who voted yes just vote yes without thinking about how it would affect the site. Most people who voted no realize the draw backs of including such a system & deem that the value it would add wouldn't out weight the amount of problems it'd cause.

 

now you're a spokesperson into the minds of all the ppl who anonymously voted? 

 

clearly you're able to articulate your own point of view without fabricating the perspective of others, especially when they didn't share it themselves? unless of course you're saying this with such authority because you're summarizing the result of some other past poll 

 

 

 

 

[ObsiEez]

Just now, MonaSaxPayne said:

clearly you're able to articulate your own point of view without fabricating the perspective of others, especially when they didn't share it themselves? unless of course you're saying this with such authority because you're summarizing the result of some other past poll 

 

 

 

 

Well seeing is how every point I bring up is ignored completely by the people who think it's a great idea, I would say that it's a safe assumption to make that most people just voted yes & moved on & the logical points made of why it's not such a great idea, especially in PSNProfiles current state. & it just kinda proves that the points are being ignored because instead of try to reply thinking of ways to solve these issues that would crop up if implemented, you instead come back with this. Besides, no matter how much anyone here argues about if it's a good idea or not, it's already been stated multiple times that it will never happen so it's just kinda screaming to the moon at this point. While I'm again, no opposed to happening, realistically the cons out weight the pros for such a system

[audiopile]

I don't see the harm in it, just not sure how much work it would be for Sly and crew.  Yes it is subjective, but if you get enough input then the true value is eventually found. 

 

I vote based on what my experience is, there is no other way.  "people" are morons.

[MrFudge]

2 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Because it's my first Deck builder. 

I've never played another game in that genre.

 

I know how hard I found it, relative to other games broadly, but have no idea where it sits within the spectrum of the genre to which it belongs - and I think it would be wrong for me to speak to its difficult without that context.

 

Whatever my own opinion is - and I do have one -  it would likely be useless to anyone else

I think you’ve just provided one of the main arguments in favour of such threads. 
 

Their greatest asset is the variety of opinions that they contain: the below average gamer, the above average, the experienced, the inexperienced. The guy that used exploits, the guy plagued by bugs, the guy that boosted the multiplayer. This collective will always trump a definitive decision from one single person, especially given that said person is very rarely an actual expert. 
 

Anybody with the basic ability to parse nonsense can easily disregard all of the shitters that post and can glean the information they’re looking for from someone reliable. And there are reliable people out there. 
 

To use your own example: deck-builders are a niche genre. Most gamers have never touched one. So, far from being useless, I’m certain that your judgement would actually be of much greater value to the average gamer, because they’d be going in with the exact same experience as you did. 
 

When you give your own opinion, you’re doing just that. You’re relaying your own personal experience which was shaped by your past experiences. You don’t need to find the ‘one, true’ difficulty rating for a game, only the difficulty that mattered to you. 
 

1 hour ago, Mellenthin said:

A voting system is particularly useful in these cases where no guides are in sight and information is scarce.

 

Precisely this. This discussion is always framed as guide vs voters, which completely disregards the hundreds of games out there that don’t have a guide and never will. 
 

Automatic voting threads become invaluable for such games. This should be common sense given the amount of obscure indies churned out nowadays. I could flick through my own profile and find countless games with less than a thousand owners that are in desperate need of this. 
 

A little over a month ago I provided an estimated time/difficulty for a game that came out 7 years ago and has 21,000 owners. In all those years, think how many thousands of people must have sought out some guidance only to find nothing. This feature is a necessity as far as I’m concerned. 
 

1 hour ago, ObsiEez said:

Would people even care enough to look if it isn't put right in front of their face?

 

…such a small feature that at the end of the day, wouldn't bring much value to the table.
 

…just to further prove that a voting system would only be used by such a handful of people, the ratings you can give guides? People BARELY use those as it is

Voting threads have been a common forum feature pretty much since trophies were first implemented. 
 

On other sites there are threads that have hundreds of replies and tens of thousands of views. 
 

To use the exact same game that I referenced above; the difficulty rating thread has 6,600 views. Despite having just 10 votes and 4 comments, the information provided is infinitely more valuable than anything that you could previously find here on PSNP. The Vermintide forum on this site was an incoherent mess of rubbish, as it is for many a game. 
 

Few people rate guides because it’s borderline pointless. There’s very rarely competition between multiple guides for the same game and so most people would still end up browsing a guide that had a one star rating since there’s no alternative. The two features aren’t comparable. 

[ObsiEez]

1 minute ago, MrFudge said:

Voting threads have been a common forum feature pretty much since trophies were first implemented. 
 

On other sites there are threads that have hundreds of replies and tens of thousands of views. 
 

To use the exact same game that I referenced above; the difficulty rating thread has 6,600 views. Despite having just 10 votes and 4 comments, the information provided is infinitely more valuable than anything that you could previously find here on PSNP. The Vermintide forum on this site was an incoherent mess of rubbish, as it is for many a game. 
 

Few people rate guides because it’s borderline pointless. There’s very rarely competition between multiple guides for the same game and so most people would still end up browsing a guide that had a one star rating since there’s no alternative. The two features aren’t comparable. 

I'm aware that people rating guides & voting for difficulty isn't a comparable thing & was mostly comparing the nature of people where only a handful of people will actually do the voting, which I should correct the statement you quoted "just to further prove that a voting system would only be used by such a handful of people, the ratings you can give guides? People BARELY use those as it is", I didn't mean people using it to see the votes, I mean just people voting on it in general.

While I do agree, people can find those threads useful & can provide value, but for how much resources it takes up is where I think the value isn't worth it. But the voting threads I personally think isn't a great idea because then those threads make up a majority of the forum which in my personal opinion is why most of those sites forums aren't nearly as active besides the voting threads. With over 15 thousands games, that is A LOT of voting threads that'd have to be tracked at once & would absolutely flood the forums hard & with the amount of new games constantly being pumped out (especially the very cheap games that have been in full swing the last few years) there constantly be new voting threads every single day, sometimes multiple. So if there ever was going to be a system implemented, it'd have to be one that isn't so cumbersome on the forums but to do that would take so much space worth of data just to maintain such a small feature when that could be used for the plethora of other outdated parts of the site instead. Like I did mention, I'm not against it happening, I'm just being realistic with how it'd affect the site & try to give insight to the people who don't know just how much that'd take to make such a small feature & to cons it also holds

[BlindMango]

On PlayStationTrophies everyone voted practically every game with a difficulty of 3/10 and never understood the entire scale, so it was kind of useless overall every time I looked at a game's difficulty there. I think if it was implemented here, it would have to be done right and encourage people to vote properly on the scale: 1 is shovelware, 5 is an average trophy list (not too difficult, not too hard), and 10 is nearly impossible. Then I think we'd need to give examples of games and a description of each rating as you're mousing over it, such as 1 is My Name is Mayo, 5 would be maybe Grand Theft Auto V, and 10 would be Super Meat Boy, etc... 

 

It would maybe stop people from losing their minds and posting dozens of comments that they can't believe that a guide creator had the audacity to rate a game's difficulty as a 7 instead of a 6 lol

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by BlindMango

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

When I see a 5 on PST I go, "Shit's about to go down." When I see an 8 on PSNP I go, "Another casual list I guess"

 

Though I did want to put ACVD at an 8 and @CelestialRequiem talked me down to a 7

[CelestialRequiem]

1 minute ago, Deadly_Ha_Ha said:

When I see a 5 on PST I go, "Shit's about to go down." When I see an 8 on PSNP I go, "Another casual list I guess"

 

Though I did want to put ACVD at an 8 and @CelestialRequiem talked me down to a 7

And I wanted it at a 6... lol. 

 

Authors tend to get too sensationalized with their difficulty ratings, I find. Of course it is subjective - but that defense doesn't mean much if no one can define number values with difficulty. 

[Rally-Vincent---]

Does it really matter much what someone else thinks about how difficult this game is? As a seasoned gamer, you should have a rough idea about how much trouble a game is going to be for you, as a newbie, almost any game probably will be a bit more of a challenge at first.

 

If you want a voting system, why not make it text-based instead of numbers? Have it two-stage: First you vote if you are experienced or unexperienced in the genre, stage two you vote for very easy, easy, mdium, difficult, very difficult. Then you have an aggregate vote for experienced and one for inexperienced players, and people can look for their respective section. I'd find that easier then determining the difference in difficulty between a 4 and a 5. I wouldn't use any voting system neither way, though.

[dieselmanchild]

On 2022-05-19 at 2:17 PM, ObsiEez said:

A, it's built into a forums & has a bot go through the games & makes a thread for voting: This would absolutely FLOOD the forums with threads or voting since there are so many games that would need voting threads. Pretty much everything that isn't a voting thread would get drowned out in the recent activity feed. You could make it so those threads don't show up unless you look for them then. But in that case, how would people find it? Would people even care enough to look if it isn't put right in front of their face?

This is not a bad idea and would probably be the simplest solution — a forum thread with a poll, linked directly out of the guide itself. I don’t think it would be as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be either. Being a forum, this is exactly how PST does it, and in it’s heyday when the site had a lot of traffic it seemed to work pretty well.

 

Also we essentially already have something similar in ‘Trophy Thoughts’ threads here on PSNP and these don’t absolutely flood the forums. The only difference is that these threads tend to be posted before games are released and serve more of a precursory function where people discuss what they think the trophies of said game are going to be like. Sometimes these threads do evolve nicely into useful streams of information on new games, but more often than not they offer nothing beyond an interesting discussion leading up to a release.
 

A difficulty/ETC thread would be intended for players who have already completed most/all of a specific game and want to vote in the poll & elaborate on why they voted the way they did. I think it would have the potential to be very useful too; as most people who have been using this site for awhile will know, it’s often not even the guides themselves that are the most useful source of information about a game — it’s the comment sections on the guides, or the forum threads created about specific topics. Having a central place to discuss these things and get a solid idea of the time & difficulty of a game would be very valuable to a lot of people like me who research games thoroughly before jumping in.