Dificulty Rating Section

[CabDK]

3 hours ago, Fiercethetear said:

I mean they can still give 10s just to increase the difficulty perception of their beloved platinums, rather than the actual difficulty of the game.

 

But like I said these people are a tiny fraction.

 

Nonetheless having to have plat or 100% prerequisite is a good idea, I remember many people on the other site commenting that they voted just after looking at the trophy list lol

Yes this is true, but like you said a tiny fraction as opposed to at lot of troll votes.

3 hours ago, Nauticus87 said:

This is the only part I disagree with on an otherwise sound suggestion.

 

I've played many games where I haven't got the plat/100% yet could still fairly advise on how difficult it would be to get said plat/100%. I think a fairer criteria would either be time played (though this has issues when shorter games are involved) or a benchmark amount of trophies obtained (i.e. around or better than the average completion amount. So if a game has 10% average completion and you have say 8%+ you can vote).

 

Having one person - the guide creator - as sole difficulty advisor isn't helpful, especially when I've seen guide creators stick to their difficulty rating against public opinion in the comments of their guide. Having more votes is always going to be more beneficial than a single vote.

 

There will always be difficulties with opinion-based metrics, but that doesn't mean they can't on the whole be useful, provided the majority are fairly voting. You could even look at implementing a vote+reason, so you have to leave a few words on why you've voted that difficulty. Even look at adding a few staff similar to cheater removal team who could approve the comments/ratings to ensure they aren't troll ones.

 

There's definitely merit in trying to pursue this on a site that wants to help people with trophies, and to add more to the place as a community hub (instead of people having to go to other sites to get this feature).

I agree there could potentially be some legitimate votes without the plat or 100%, it's not flawless, but I still think this would be a huge improvement in comparison to the .org polls.

 

There would obviously have to be some sort of comment section, maybe leave that section open for all to comment on the dificulty.

[VoidVictorious]

2 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

I sometimes wonder why anyone bothers to be a guide creator - it seems like a thankless task...

 

...every comment I ever see about them is along the lines of "What does this chump know about the difficulty of this game?!" 😂

Agreed, isn’t this entire thread second guessing their ratings on many games in the first place? I would hate to rewrite a guide after a patch made things easier, etc.

4 minutes ago, CabDK said:

Yes this is true, but like you said a tiny fraction as opposed to at lot of troll votes.

I agree there could potentially be some legitimate votes without the plat or 100%, it's not flawless, but I still think this would be a huge improvement in comparison to the .org polls.

 

There would obviously have to be some sort of comment section, maybe leave that section open for all to comment on the dificulty.

I think you could have a legitimate discussion in the trophy thoughts thread if you haven’t completed it, and a feature could be implemented like sessions, but instead where you can’t vote unless you have the platinum.

[CabDK]

5 minutes ago, VoidVictorious said:

Agreed, isn’t this entire thread second guessing their ratings on many games in the first place? I would hate to rewrite a guide after a patch made things easier, etc.

I think you could have a legitimate discussion in the trophy thoughts thread if you haven’t completed it, and a feature could be implemented like sessions, but instead where you can’t vote unless you have the platinum.

Yes exactly, the idea is you can only vote if you have the plat or 100% in the game.

[charxsetsuna]

Sounds like a good idea to me

[VigilantCrow]

Sounds like something I'd use.

Don't see why anyone cares about troll score posting. We already know trolls have zero skill in games given they spend all day whining on the internet instead of practicing mechanics. Only makes sense everything is a 10 to those lacking talent.

 

 

[BlindMango]

I think if difficulty rating were added, it would have to be something other than a 1 - 10 scale, because on PST every game ends up just being a 3/10 difficulty lol

 

Maybe something where people can vote “Easy, Medium, Hard” and it would average those out on a scale. Whichever “1/3” of the scale the average lands on would be the voted difficulty 

 

If three ratings aren’t enough you can also throw in “Very Hard” as a fourth option and the scale would average into fourths

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by BlindMango

[Shikotei-kun]

Oh boy, here we go again!

 

If you want the opinion of a guide writer, here's mine:

Bad idea. For several reasons, most of which are already mentioned:

- Dishonest rating

- Unable to vote until certain percentage completed (either 💯 or )

- Low voter count for new or niche (low player count overall)

- Inflexible after patches, glitch-fixes, cheat-code reveals

 

For games with a guide, plenty of people seem to berate (pun intended) the writer for putting something other than what they would put. Sometimes just the difference of 6 vs 7, or 4 vs 5. Is that all that readers look at?

 

Then there's skill. Yep. Plain ass skill. I'm really bad with shooters, so those games are easily going to be 8-10 on the scale. My friend is awesome with them, and would put them in the 5-7 range. So what is the actual difficulty?

There is none.

Then there's the skill-before and skill-after playing the game. Muscle memory is a great boon to us players. It's what makes repetitive sections easier over time. It's what makes tough bosses into trash mobs after enough encounters. It's what will lower the difficulty if spent enough time on the task.

Looking back on some of my games played, I'd have a twisted sense of real difficulty.

How tough was Dark Souls compared to Demon's Souls? DS was the first, and tough as nails. DeS was second, and I blew through it. Would someone who played DeS before DS say the same? Or would they rank DeS tougher than DS?

 

Playing with and without a guide also has severe impact on your experienced difficulty. Knowing cheese tactics, best grind spots for loot/exp, best weapon loadouts, locations of collectibles/items, skip-exploits and other speedrun tactics, etc.. will make things far easier than when you would have to figure it out by yourself.

Those who write guides dig far deeper into a game than the majority of players because they have to determine the best course of action, record the locations or things, fight bosses over and over again to see its full skill-set and counter-actions. This may just be my opinion, but those who comment "difficulty rating is wrong" can shove off.

 

At least there's HowLongToBeat.com for the average completion time. Which, for plenty of games, is underpopulated.

[CabDK]

2 hours ago, Shikotei-kun said:

Oh boy, here we go again!

 

If you want the opinion of a guide writer, here's mine:

Bad idea. For several reasons, most of which are already mentioned:

- Dishonest rating

- Unable to vote until certain percentage completed (either 💯 or )

- Low voter count for new or niche (low player count overall)

- Inflexible after patches, glitch-fixes, cheat-code reveals

 

For games with a guide, plenty of people seem to berate (pun intended) the writer for putting something other than what they would put. Sometimes just the difference of 6 vs 7, or 4 vs 5. Is that all that readers look at?

 

Then there's skill. Yep. Plain ass skill. I'm really bad with shooters, so those games are easily going to be 8-10 on the scale. My friend is awesome with them, and would put them in the 5-7 range. So what is the actual difficulty?

There is none.

Then there's the skill-before and skill-after playing the game. Muscle memory is a great boon to us players. It's what makes repetitive sections easier over time. It's what makes tough bosses into trash mobs after enough encounters. It's what will lower the difficulty if spent enough time on the task.

Looking back on some of my games played, I'd have a twisted sense of real difficulty.

How tough was Dark Souls compared to Demon's Souls? DS was the first, and tough as nails. DeS was second, and I blew through it. Would someone who played DeS before DS say the same? Or would they rank DeS tougher than DS?

 

Playing with and without a guide also has severe impact on your experienced difficulty. Knowing cheese tactics, best grind spots for loot/exp, best weapon loadouts, locations of collectibles/items, skip-exploits and other speedrun tactics, etc.. will make things far easier than when you would have to figure it out by yourself.

Those who write guides dig far deeper into a game than the majority of players because they have to determine the best course of action, record the locations or things, fight bosses over and over again to see its full skill-set and counter-actions. This may just be my opinion, but those who comment "difficulty rating is wrong" can shove off.

 

At least there's HowLongToBeat.com for the average completion time. Which, for plenty of games, is underpopulated.

I'm sorry I value others opinion and not only the guide writer's, I don't see the problem in having the author rating in the guide and other peoples opinion in a dificulty section with comments, I really don't. And if you don't like it then don't use it. I play games with no guides and in the hope of finding a bit of information i visit .org, but the site i dead now and I think it would be nice to have in a better version here on PSNP.

Edited October 16, 2023 by CabDK

[Mellenthin]

On 10/12/2023 at 10:26 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

I sometimes wonder why anyone bothers to be a guide creator - it seems like a thankless task...

 

...every comment I ever see about them is along the lines of "What does this chump know about the difficulty of this game?!" 😂

 

Can you give an actual reference other than your typical troll response?

 

On 10/12/2023 at 6:49 PM, BlindMango said:

I think if difficulty rating were added, it would have to be something other than a 1 - 10 scale, because on PST every game ends up just being a 3/10 difficulty lol

 

Maybe something where people can vote “Easy, Medium, Hard” and it would average those out on a scale. Whichever “1/3” of the scale the average lands on would be the voted difficulty 

 

If three ratings aren’t enough you can also throw in “Very Hard” as a fourth option and the scale would average into fourths

 

 

Literally every game? Wouldn't that be the very definition of hyperbole?!?

[BlindMango]

1 hour ago, Mellenthin said:

Literally every game? Wouldn't that be the very definition of hyperbole?!?

 

I mean yeah it's hyperbole lol, it's meant to be an exaggerated statement and not meant to be read 100% literally

[Mellenthin]

 

11 minutes ago, BlindMango said:

 

I mean yeah it's hyperbole lol, it's meant to be an exaggerated statement and not meant to be read 100% literally

 

That's reassuring to hear. By the way, you ever thought of using smiles more?😉

[acasser]

On 10/12/2023 at 4:26 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

I sometimes wonder why anyone bothers to be a guide creator - it seems like a thankless task...

 

...every comment I ever see about them is along the lines of "What does this chump know about the difficulty of this game?!" 😂

 

I write guides when my muse wakes up and nudges me to do so.  And when ignoring her for a few days/weeks isn't enough to quiet her back down.  I won't claim that I'm a marvelous guide writer; I'm a rather mediocre guide writer and I stick mostly to semi-niche RPGs as I play them.  (One of those RPGs was later chosen for PS+, which accounts for a huge percentage of my total guide view counts.)

 

As for the comment about the difficulty?  I admit to being a "difficulty snob", with my standards being much, much higher than a large majority of players.  Enough so that I've also taken to adding a disclaimer in any new guide I write explaining why I planted the difficulty where it is if I believe the "internet consensus" will differ greatly.

[DrBloodmoney]

2 hours ago, Mellenthin said:

 

Can you give an actual reference other than your typical troll response?

I could, yeah…

…I could quote some of the many comments in the many difficulty related threads wherein people refer to guide-creators as having mis-assigned difficulty ratings, or not knowing what they are talking about vis-a-vis difficulty…

 

…but I won’t bother, as it would require me to put in more effort than I’m willing to spend simply to respond to someone who has clearly made up thier mind on my input anyways, and would likely just be one of my “typical troll responses” 

[JAK-KRIEG]

On 10/10/2023 at 6:52 PM, CabDK said:

I think it would be an awesome feature and I'm sure a lot of people would agree. I am not a software engineer or anything, but because PSNP pulls it's data from Sony servers I assume it would be easy to make a dificulty section for each game, where only people who has the platinum or 100% can vote in the poll. I'm not suggesting that it should be implemented in the trophy guides, but having a section with people who has the platinum can rate the game would be a very nice feature. It could be placed in the right side with Series/Stacks, I've wanted a feature like this for a long time and now that .org is completely dead its even more relevant.

I wholeheartedly agree with all your points yes we are missing a 'true' way to gauge the difficulty of a game or dlc and the fact that people completed it first hand makes it more reliable the score average, but of course not foolproof at the very least it's better than some 'badass' guide writer flexing his badass gaming skills and rating too low so most will be in for a shock or vice versa too high and it's piss easy. I'm sorry I missed this thread cab.

[CabDK]

I value the guide writer's rating, it is not the point here and i dont want the discussion to be about that, I think it's a good idea that the rating i guides is the authors own opinion. This is ment like an addition I'm not in any way against the writer's liberty to give the rating they find suitable.

 

Not all games have guides either, so I would be nice with an addition like this.

[LancashireLad87]

If a difficulty poll was added which seems unlikely after reading some of the posts on here, the only way you'll remove people who are disingenuous is to publicly show what each user has voted. You'll never reach a true difficulty rating no matter what system you implement, however I do agree that it would be better to have a general consensus from multiple users regarding a games difficulty instead of an individuals perspective. If your not content with a trophy guides difficulty rating you could always comment on the guide explaining why you think its under/overrated. I've had moderate success with this myself but sometimes its a waste of time because the guide writer deletes your comment.   

[JAK-KRIEG]

3 hours ago, CabDK said:

I value the guide writer's rating, it is not the point here and i dont want the discussion to be about that, I think it's a good idea that the rating i guides is the authors own opinion. This is ment like an addition I'm not in any way against the writer's liberty to give the rating they find suitable.

 

Not all games have guides either, so I would be nice with an addition like this.

Yeah that's what I meant I'm not saying get rid of the authors opinion I'm saying let's get this as an addition. I think it will help a lot of people struggling to decide whether to start a game, knowing what's what. Providing a comment along with the score would be a nice touch too like people used to do on .org 

[leonhardyhardy]

It would be a nice feature to have, especially for games where guidewriters haven't achieved the platinum themselves. Assuming not many trolls were voting, it could give a broader scale on what people thought of the game. 

[Mellenthin]

On 10/12/2023 at 10:26 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

 

I sometimes wonder why anyone bothers to be a guide creator - it seems like a thankless task...

 

...every comment I ever see about them is along the lines of "What does this chump know about the difficulty of this game?!" 😂

 

19 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I could, yeah…

…I could quote some of the many comments in the many difficulty related threads wherein people refer to guide-creators as having mis-assigned difficulty ratings, or not knowing what they are talking about vis-a-vis difficulty…

 

…but I won’t bother, as it would require me to put in more effort than I’m willing to spend simply to respond to someone who has clearly made up thier mind on my input anyways, and would likely just be one of my “typical troll responses” 

 

I know you like to jest but it's not like you gave much room for doubt.😉

 

Personally, I only give judgement on games I've actually finished and try my best to do that objectively. The goal isn't to belittle or make fun of guide writers, but if the task at hand is to make an accurate list, then it's an inevitability to have different views - especially so when difficulty often can be determined by a person's knowledge - or lack thereof - of a game.

 

And for the record, I wouldn't be able to pursue what I do if it wasn't for the awesome individuals who spend a great deal of time and effort making our hobby a lot more streamlined and enjoyable, so don't think for a second that I have nothing but respect for them.

 

That said, there's clearly a distinct flaw with the guide system in the sense how a rating might not change at all despite a wealth of information in either the comment section or elsewhere that's been accumulated over the years. I believe that's something to be negative, mostly in the way that at worst it could potentially scare off people from playing a good game, but also because I'm the type of person that want things in general to be accurate.🙂

[ObsiEez]

Unpopular opinion: Why does the difficulty of the game even matter? If it interests you than play it, if it doesn't, then don't play it. Difficulty is such a subjective matter that having it in a guide, or even as a poll doesn't mean anything other than giving some people the satisfaction of saying "Yeah I agree with that". if not, then it's "Oh my god why would you rate it so high/low, you clearly don't know anything".

Difficulty ratings are pointless since it will be completely different for everyone & already existing difficulty polls have already proven to not work since people will just try & skew the votes into what they want the rating to be. Not to mention, people rarely rate guides on the site already, what makes people think that all the sudden the userbase is going to rate the difficulty of a game?

I'm personally of the opinion of abolishing difficulty ratings in any type of content that is suppose to be informative since it does absolutely nothing but cause people to argue if the rating is "right" or if the rating is "wrong". Just play the game or don't play it, simple as that. If you're letting difficult trophies stop you from enjoying a game, you've already lost. 

Edited October 18, 2023 by ObsiEez

[mackenzie129]

There's trophy sites that do it already, some do it well some do it bad. But its a feature that doesn't hurt anyone if implemented, A guide writer could say a game is 7/10 meanwhile to 50% of the trophy hunters it could be a 4/10. 

You'll never make everyone happy

Edited October 18, 2023 by mackenzie129

[Xylobe]

One thing I'll add that's tangent to the point of the discussion is that .org having so many smaller games with zero votes on their difficulty polls, to me at least, reflects negatively on the site itself (in a "wow this place is dead" sort of way). Not sure if "site health optics" are worth considering in the conversation, but I would expect the same thing to happen here even with the much more active userbase.

[dieselmanchild]

I completely support this suggestion Cab and have argued in favour of it many times, because while I absolutely love PSNP and regard it as my favourite trophy site by far, a major pet peeve I’ve always had with this site is the fact the difficulty ratings & time estimates are solely based on the guide author’s opinions.
 

Anybody who is writing a guide for a game likely knows it inside and out, and so their ratings rarely reflect the reality for the average trophy hunter and guide reader. It’s been my experience that more than half of the guides on this site are very inaccurate in both of these categories, even when the guide itself is otherwise excellent quality, and it’s a complaint I hear constantly from friends and fellow trophy hunters. You can see this play out in the comments on new guides all the time too.

 

Personally I really loved the community based polling + comment format that Playstationtrophies.org (PST) used, the data from which was inserted directly into the guides. A lot of people have brought up the problematic issue of “troll votes” and I suppose it’s a valid concern in this day and age where things like review bombing are common place, but if you go back to older games from the PS3 era on PST (when the site was at it’s peak) I found that most of the time the difficulty/time ratings were very accurate, certainly far more accurate than anything you see on PSNP.

 

Then there were the comments — arguably the best part of that system. Back in its peak, most PST users would post comments alongside their vote to elaborate about why they voted that way. In these threads you’d often find extremely useful tips and insightful commentary that would give a true idea of how long you could reasonably expect to achieve all the trophies & how difficult you could expect it to be. It was honestly kind of tragic watching PST’s user base slowly dwindle away and those threads on newer games become a ghost town, because in it’s heyday the usefulness of that place was unmatched.

 

I can understand the reservations some people have with this idea. Aside from the work of actually creating such a system for this site, the main issue for many people seems to be a lack of agreement on how it should be implemented, and who should be allowed to issue ratings etc. But I hope we can all at least agree that a system like this would be an overall improvement to the site and the user experience. 

 

 

[ObsiEez]

1 hour ago, dieselmanchild said:

Anybody who is writing a guide for a game likely knows it inside and out, and so their ratings rarely reflect the reality for the average trophy hunter and guide reader. It’s been my experience that more than half of the guides on this site are very inaccurate in both of these categories, even when the guide itself is otherwise excellent quality, and it’s a complaint I hear constantly from friends and fellow trophy hunters. You can see this play out in the comments on new guides all the time too.

 

& that's the problem, you CAN'T be accurate with a difficulty rating as it's 100% subjective, not based in any kind of facts, yet everyone argues their OPINION of the rating as being correct. Even if you poll it, it still isn't the "right" difficulty rating because it all depends on the person playing. Going into a guide & arguing difficulty rating is just as pointless as going into a guide and arguing if the game is good or not, because it's all subjective. Guides shouldn't even have a difficulty rating to begin with as it adds 0 value & causes arguments over something that is purely subjective.

For the souls games, highest I'd rate them is a 5/10 across the board. The Evil Within I'd rate a 4/10. But for other people, both of those could very well easily be 10/10's. Even if you create a poll, there will be very little votes (rating's on guides already prove that the userbase isn't willing to spend 2 seconds of their time to rate something on a scale, so why would doing it for difficulty be any different?) Difficulty ratings overall are a pointless metric that is just a pat on the back for the people that agree with the rating. and an excuse for people to complain about a subjective rating if they don't agree. Like you said, new guides are constantly being filled with comments about the difficulty instead of what the comments SHOULD be filled with, which is feedback about the actual guide itself, not an arbitrary number that is different for everyone.

 

As a guide writer, the way I personally rate my guides when it comes to difficulty is I take my rating, then add 2 points to it. So for Callisto Protocol for example, I personally think it's a 3/10 difficulty wise, but I added 2 points to make it a 5/10 because most people would view that as "too low" for the "average player". What even is the average player? What kind of games do they play? Are they familiar with the genre? Do they play video games often? It all depends on a multitude of factors that a simple scale of 1 to 10 can never accurately measure to a player. I think it's the same thing with reviewing. Reviewers rating a game a 10/10 is like "Oh wow, that game must be good!" But why is the game good? That 10/10 means nothing without context, just the same thing with difficulty ratings. Not to mention difficulty ratings could mean it's difficult in literally so many ways that can't be conveyed by a number. Is it hard because it forces you to use your brain a lot? Is it hard because it requires really precise movements & coordination? Is it hard because it's an extremely strict time limit? Some people might find some of those things easier than others, but all of those would still be rating under the same umbrella of a difficulty rating making it difficult to gauge for players.

Basically TL;DR, a number rating is pointless, watch gameplay videos, reviews, or even play the game yourself to form your own opinion on difficulty because no one is a better gauge for how difficult a game is than you.

Edited October 19, 2023 by ObsiEez

[Vanqishd]

Ratings are subjective.

 

People always disagree with author-given ratings because they believe it should be higher while others believe it should be lower. A community-based effort of trying to come up with a “mean” wouldn’t work and you’d still have the same arguments.

 

I wish instead of complaints about difficulty numbers, we’d get actual arguments about why these commentators believe the ratings should sway in another direction. These discussions often happen in the usual Trophy Thoughts thread of every game, so that’s always worth a read if you want to know more about trophy lists.

 

Hell, even time is subjective. Some players take their time exploring everything while some others basically do a platinum speedrun any%. Still, Howlongtobeat is the best site to get an idea of how long and/or complex games are (story vs completitionist).