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Average completion times.


effdeegee

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Just had a quick thought and didn't find it when searching these forums so, forgive me if it turns out that the search didn't work properly. To be honest, I could have sworn I've seen this mentioned before.

 

I think it would be good to see the average completion time for a the platinum and/or 100%.

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We've discussed this before and I've suggested it myself. It's just really bloody hard to implement because the only way to automatically measure it is the time it takes from the first trophy to the Platinum. For some, that might be 24 hours, for others it could be 4+ years. Unless a game supports in-game time tracking, it's an impossible task to do with any degree of accuracy.

 

I also suggested maybe we go along the same path as www.howlongtobeat.com, which works fine for PC games because Steam measures the data, but PS3/PS4/Vita would be based on an honour system as an estimate only. You're going to get people bullshitting that it took them 10 hours to complete a 30 hour game, 50 hours to complete a 100 hour game etc. Not much can be done to combat ego and the data will be inaccurate.

 

There is hope however because the new Guides system Sly is rolling out includes an Hours field. I tend to think this figure will be underestimated too for the purposes of average time to complete, but it's probably the best we can hope for on the PSN. As far as measuring and reporting it based on trophy data, the result is going to be meaningless as a measure of in-game time. It's also going to be meaningless as an average time to completion because of the massive outliers (seconds to years).

 

[edit] Here's the topic - https://psnprofiles.com/forums/topic/4698-suggestion-list/ and my thread necro - https://psnprofiles.com/forums/topic/4698-suggestion-list/#entry231572

Edited by ant1th3s1s
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Some sites do this by simply having people all vote on the length - but these are almost always under the real values, as people feel the need to fake like they did it faster than they really did to feel like big-boys.

Would be wierd to automate it from the trophy data since in, for example, The Last of Us, the first trophy some people get is for finishing the game the first time...

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I've thought about the differences in times for both hackers and people that don't finish.

 

My thought is that; people that hack the game (eg. 8 hours) and aren't caught will counter balance those that play it and never finish it/finish it a long time after (eg. year+).

 

If it were put on a line graph, you'd be able to see very clearly where the majority of the players finished, giving an accurate average time for the average gamer. Sure, there would be some that would say 6 hours or 8 hours, and some that would say 12 months or 14 months (or even incomplete) but, the majority would say something like 28 hours (for example).

 

I think it would be an excellent feature for the upcoming guides, too.

 

I also think that, considering the majority of trophies earned have time stamps, and times are already calculated for first, fastest and latest, it would be extremely easy to figure out the average time. The only question really would be the ease/difficulty of implementing it into the stats section.

 

Anywho. Just spitballin' here. 4:38am gets boring sometimes. :P

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no it doesn't give a game stat - Take hitman for example (as I have this game on my list). It's probably a 20 hour plat for most people who actually care , for me it could be a year.

 

You are going to have a lot of people that don't care, so this wouldn't give any information towards guides, and would, in my opinion, be very counter productive, as it will make the game seem much longer than it actually is, meaning people will not bother.

 

Even a 20hour plat will take several days for anyone who has a job/kids/etc.

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no it doesn't give a game stat - Take hitman for example (as I have this game on my list). It's probably a 20 hour plat for most people who actually care , for me it could be a year.

 

You are going to have a lot of people that don't care, so this wouldn't give any information towards guides, and would, in my opinion, be very counter productive, as it will make the game seem much longer than it actually is, meaning people will not bother.

 

Even a 20hour plat will take several days for anyone who has a job/kids/etc.

 

Exactly. A 20 hour game is going to take me at least a week based on the time I have to play a game. Based on timestamp calculations, that makes it a 168 hour game, not 20 hours. There's no way to break the trophy timestamp data down from real time (168 hours passed) to in-game time (20 hours played).

 

For the quick, that 20 hour game is still roughly 48 hours of real time. For the slow, it could be thousands of hours. It's junk data, we can't use it. Even if you filter out the fastest 30% and the slowest 30%, the middle 40% is going to give a result that is 10 x actual game time.

 

Unless in-game hours can be tracked in the save file or on the game servers, the best we can do is use an honour system or use the estimates provided in the Trophy Guides.

Edited by ant1th3s1s
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If it were put on a line graph, you'd be able to see very clearly where the majority of the players finished, giving an accurate average time for the average gamer. Sure, there would be some that would say 6 hours or 8 hours, and some that would say 12 months or 14 months (or even incomplete) but, the majority would say something like 28 hours (for example).

But that "majority" are only people who play regularly X hours each day.

Every player has different playing schedule. I'm a no lifer and as soon as I get home from work I play until 1-2 AM most of the times. And on weekends I play almost all day.

But other people don't play regularly or the same amount of time every time.

What's more to it, I usually finish a game after starting without playing anything else in the mean time. Other people shuffle games constantly.

You can't get a seriously meaningful guesstimate like that.

Edited by DocDoomII
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