Difficutly / Time Voting System

[DepthsKeeper]

I agree with commentators above that this feature should be implemented as it can be very useful:

1. Difficulty/time threads can contain invaluable info about platinums/completion.

2. The scattering is as important. TrueAchivements time plots are very useful when estimating time. The same for difficulty. But I'm not sure about this one:

On 5/19/2022 at 11:03 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

...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...

 

Because not all "Slay the Spire" platinum achievers are experts in card games. And that is valuable: different opinions, different votes (agree with MrFudge).

3. To beat trolls and polar votes: players which do not obtained platinum/100% cannot vote (as is already mentioned here). Just because only 1 trophy can make a platinum/100% nearly impossible.

4. Providing a unified time/difficulty system is beneficial as it standardizes scores (another valuable point already mentioned here).

5. Trolls/cheaters should be warned about possible blocking of voting ability. Explanation: for example, the things are settled and 1 is something like "press X to win", 4 is "easy" and 7 is "hard". And some platinum achiever voted 4 for Demon's Souls Remake. Is it a legal vote? It is discussable and has a right for living (because the easiness depends on skill, luck and so on). I guess, a person could easily defend its opinion. Tthen other platinum achiever voted 1 for Demon's Souls Remake. No, because it does not comply the assigned "press X to win" description". That cause should be warned.

6. With time, difficulty/time ratings will be more and more accurate.

7. By the by, isn't the following opinion kind of controversial? "We do not want this system because votes are very subjective (thus, not valuable), therefore just 1 person should decide about difficulty/time" (all the flattery aside, psn profile has a lot of great guides, but it really seems controversial, especially because a guide writer can be not an expert (and, what is the definition of "guide expert" here?) ).

I personally do like how it is implemented on this website (check it with some translator help). And, as I see, the votes are quite adequate. For instance,

Some hard games: Trackmania Turbo, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.

Some average games: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Resident Evil 2.

Some easy games: Horizon: Forbidden West, Need for Speed: Heat.

[grim_fendango]

I'm with the mods on this one. Voting is really subjective and I think it's more valuable to weight opinions based on the expertise of the person involved. The guide writer is that person. There is already a comment option on guides where readers can offer feedback to the author on matters such as this. I have used people's feedback to adjust the timing on my guides.

 

As for difficulty, I have advocated for a guide to be written about certain factors that can influence a difficulty score with references. I think there is still value in something like this to provide useful suggestions on how to rank a games difficulty.

 

As much as I love democracy, I think this is one of the areas where it may not be directly applicable.

[Shikotei-kun]

On 5/17/2022 at 9:15 PM, AihaLoveleaf said:

I hope we can at least see standardization of difficulty ratings one of these days. What truly makes a game 5/10 has never been clearly defined, nor agreed upon by the community, and we're seeing the effects of that, with many ratings landing within extremes.

On 5/17/2022 at 10:32 PM, DaivRules said:

If someone wants to move the needle on actually making difficulty information helpful and informative, they should [..] define the quantitative measurements and standard objective definition of “difficulty”. I look forward to the conclusions [..] which can be used to create applicable difficulty descriptions to game guides.

On 5/17/2022 at 11:20 PM, Bumperklever said:

To me, the minimum a guide writer would need to do [..] is to follow some kind guideline on how to interpret difficulty rating. 

[..]

I think the best way is to standardize a certain logic and advertise this to the guide writers.

On 5/20/2022 at 2:24 AM, BlindMango said:

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

 

There seems to be a common idea floating about this thread. And I might just have a bit of information to flesh out this idea.

As stolen paraphrased (bit of grammar/spelling/choice-of-words cleanup) from Together_Comic I present you the Difficulty Scale:

 

On 8/26/2020 at 3:14 PM, Together_Comic said:

The Difficulty Scale

1. Very easy. Playing through the game is enough for the platinum and there are very little or no challenging aspects.

2. You must do a couple of extra things, and there are things that may not get on the first try.

3. Easy, but you won't get all the trophies by just playing through the game normally/blind.

4. Below average difficulty. You may need guidance to obtain some of the trophies.

5. Average difficulty. The game may require you to beat it at higher difficulties, or beat extra "super bosses"-like endgame/post-story content.

6. Above average difficulty. There are some legitimately tough moments, but basically anyone can do it without too much trouble.

7. A game where you will likely die or fail a bit, there a quite a few moments that are tough.

8. A genuinely hard game: one where there a lot of tough moments and completing them will require you to be pretty good at the game.

9. A very hard game. Basically things are tough from the word go and will require a bit of perseverance to complete even if you are pretty good at the game.

10. An extremely hard video game. One where you don't quite think its possible to complete but you're going to try anyway. Will require a lot of time and patience.

 

It can be expanded by adding a few examples of each difficulty number for clarification.

Having a standardized difficulty scale is the simplest of solutions. Takes very little resources, there's no trolls (assuming the writer isn't one), and it's easy to apply the right "condition" to the guide.

[Bumperklever]

24 minutes ago, Shikotei-kun said:

 

There seems to be a common idea floating about this thread. And I might just have a bit of information to flesh out this idea.

As stolen paraphrased (bit of grammar/spelling/choice-of-words cleanup) from Together_Comic I present you the Difficulty Scale:

 

It can be expanded by adding a few examples of each difficulty number for clarification.

Having a standardized difficulty scale is the simplest of solutions. Takes very little resources, there's no trolls (assuming the writer isn't one), and it's easy to apply the right "condition" to the guide.

 

Something like that. So that its nicely standardised and I dont need to see a 10/10 fall guys anymore. I think I can dig the example you quoted.

 

Preferably implemented in the site when creating a guide so that the writer cant skip on that bit of information.

 

And even if the guide writer is a troll (altough making the time to make a guide only to end up trolling the rating seems a bit of a stretch) or skips on the standardised way,  the guide team have a final say in accepting the guide anyway.

 

Thanks for summarizing, I hope PSNProfiles (teams) will do something with this idea. 

 

[DepthsKeeper]

On 6/21/2022 at 5:47 AM, grim_fendango said:

I'm with the mods on this one. Voting is really subjective and I think it's more valuable to weight opinions based on the expertise of the person involved. The guide writer is that person. There is already a comment option on guides where readers can offer feedback to the author on matters such as this. I have used people's feedback to adjust the timing on my guides.

 

As for difficulty, I have advocated for a guide to be written about certain factors that can influence a difficulty score with references. I think there is still value in something like this to provide useful suggestions on how to rank a games difficulty.

 

As much as I love democracy, I think this is one of the areas where it may not be directly applicable.

 

Saw already 2 examples, where the voting system works fine, so why it should not work here?

Another problem with guides only: we cannot understand the difficulty/time estimates if a game does not have a guide. Rarity is not helping here.

[grim_fendango]

On 27/06/2022 at 11:08 PM, DepthsKeeper said:

 

Saw already 2 examples, where the voting system works fine, so why it should not work here?

Another problem with guides only: we cannot understand the difficulty/time estimates if a game does not have a guide. Rarity is not helping here.

I think the site owner and the mods have a right to have their vision for what the site is and the level of quality the information presented on said site fully realised. If they want to have curated and carefully informed completion timings rather than democratically and easily gamed voting based values, then they are allowed to do that. It's their site. This topic has been raised before and they have decided against it. You have a voice, they have listened and said no. That's all their is to it. If there's a feature that's important to you that's not available here. With all due respect, you can always go elsewhere for that information.

 

I think the idea that PSNP is meant to be the trophy website that's all things to all people is a bit unhelpful. Different trophy tracking websites have their own strengths and weaknesses that align with the vision of the respective site owners. For example, the rarity based trophy scoring and friend based leaderboards are some really awesome features that are available on true trophies. These are things I'd love to see available on PSNP but I can appreciate that the site owners have not implemented these features for various reasons. I may not agree with those reasons but I can appreciate that neither of our views are purely objective on these matters and am willing to respect our differences. Yes you may have seen an alternative approach that works somewhere else. But that's not definitive proof that it's objectively better. Different approaches have their own merits which I think is worth considering and appreciating at times like this.

 

Happy hunting and all the best ?

 

TL;DR we live in a society.

Edited June 30, 2022 by grim_fendango

[DepthsKeeper]

On 6/30/2022 at 5:19 AM, grim_fendango said:

I think the site owner and the mods have a right to have their vision for what the site is and the level of quality the information presented on said site fully realised. If they want to have curated and carefully informed completion timings rather than democratically and easily gamed voting based values, then they are allowed to do that. It's their site. This topic has been raised before and they have decided against it. You have a voice, they have listened and said no. That's all their is to it. If there's a feature that's important to you that's not available here. With all due respect, you can always go elsewhere for that information.

 

I think the idea that PSNP is meant to be the trophy website that's all things to all people is a bit unhelpful. Different trophy tracking websites have their own strengths and weaknesses that align with the vision of the respective site owners. For example, the rarity based trophy scoring and friend based leaderboards are some really awesome features that are available on true trophies. These are things I'd love to see available on PSNP but I can appreciate that the site owners have not implemented these features for various reasons. I may not agree with those reasons but I can appreciate that neither of our views are purely objective on these matters and am willing to respect our differences. Yes you may have seen an alternative approach that works somewhere else. But that's not definitive proof that it's objectively better. Different approaches have their own merits which I think is worth considering and appreciating at times like this.

 

Happy hunting and all the best

 

TL;DR we live in a society.

I know, I know. An owner can decide what he/she wants to see in his project. It's just a bit disappointing, that there is a flaw in an existing system, there is a suggestion how to fix and there is an interest for it (based on regularity of such topics and on the poll results here) from community, but no interest in fixing it from the owners. I guess, they think, that polls are more destructive than the flaw itself.

[Maverick6146]

I, for one was indifferent to this suggestion. Difficulty generally speaking, has too much noice to be a reliable source to affect my decision. I have been “tricked” by the difficulty score from a very respectable guide site and I would just ignore all difficulty related information from them. 
 

similar thing goes for the time spending.

[Merty]

No, it would not be beneficial.

[Arsentio]

I think it would be really great. Hours played like mentioned above (~exophase) is cool too. 

 

And why so serious about accuracy?) Average by many voters represent "better result" than by one person. 

[DeepEyes7]

Difficulty and time are so biased, a lot of people like to brag about those... "DMC5? Pffff easy... 2/10, did it in like 20 hours because I was fooling around, Exophase says 500 hours but thats because I leave my console afk a lot..." and trolls like to mess with polls too...

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

Hard to really trust anyone with difficulty ratings tbh. Look at some of the guides on this site; sensationalized is the word that comes to mind. But the mass is also a bunch of trolls so... /shrug

[iriihutoR84]

2 minutes ago, DeepEyes7 said:

Difficulty and time are so biased, a lot of people like to brag about those... "DMC5? Pffff easy... 2/10, did it in like 20 hours because I was fooling around, Exophase says 500 hours but thats because I leave my console afk a lot..." and trolls like to mess with polls too...

 

Why do you think trolls and braggers would dominate an anonymous poll? They will be outliers.

 

There is a highly popular Xbox achievement site that uses user-voted estimated completion times and it works there. One troll on the site has voted a 1-2 hour completion time for Fallout 4 but that's not even visible on the graph against the 300+ users who voted 60-80 hours and 400+ who voted 80-100 hours. The very helpful graph on that site also says that it is possible but rare with completion times below 60 hours and even 40 hours for those who rush through it and plan well. User voted completion times work and I consider it proven by that site. 

 

I think a difficulty rating system would be harder to implement and I also think it's less needed because of how subjective it is. Personally, I'd rather look at completion percentages even if they don't give a full answer either. 

[DeepEyes7]

3 minutes ago, iriihutoR84 said:

 

Why do you think trolls and braggers would dominate an anonymous poll? They will be outliers.

 

There is a highly popular Xbox achievement site that uses user-voted estimated completion times and it works there. One troll on the site has voted a 1-2 hour completion time for Fallout 4 but that's not even visible on the graph against the 300+ users who voted 60-80 hours and 400+ who voted 80-100 hours. The very helpful graph on that site also says that it is possible but rare with completion times below 60 hours and even 40 hours for those who rush through it and plan well. User voted completion times work and I consider it proven by that site. 

 

I think a difficulty rating system would be harder to implement and I also think it's less needed because of how subjective it is. Personally, I'd rather look at completion percentages even if they don't give a full answer either. 

 

You are right, and I even wanted to talk about that but decided not to, I liked the polls of PS3T.org, some games with hundreds of votes feels kind of safe because the trolls and braggers are a minority as you said, but you only found those polls with all those votes in older games, now people doesnt care to vote, you enter new games and you are lucky if there is answers, and since the polls are anonymous when you enter a game sometimes there is 2 or 3 votes, and usually they are 1's or 10's...

[Mizztec]

I wouldn't mind something like this, I liked the one on pst.org but rarely visit that site anymore  

[Murderer__211]

I like the idea of having an auto-generated thread for each game because it would offer a place for more players to give their thoughts and debate on the difficulty/time for a game outside of the comments section for a guide. The only problem I see is that we'd probably want to limit who can vote on such a poll to players who own the game but a forum is open to everyone...

[DaivRules]

54 minutes ago, Murderer__211 said:

I like the idea of having an auto-generated thread for each game because it would offer a place for more players to give their thoughts and debate on the difficulty/time for a game outside of the comments section for a guide. The only problem I see is that we'd probably want to limit who can vote on such a poll to players who own the game but a forum is open to everyone...

Nothing stops people now from creating a thread right along with (manual, but incessant) “Trophy Thoughts” thread, or just posting thoughts/debates on difficulty/time since those just trophy thoughts anyway. 
 

Autogenerating a thread for every console and region release of every game sounds like clutter for the 98% of threads that would get absolutely no one posting in them except for the “So does anyone want to start?” initial posts that will inevitably follow from people looking to get their post count up, or whatever motivation they have for inane opening posts.