Porn vs Gameplay vs Story - ranking, a new way to classify games.

[Warlock]

In order to cater to diverging interests users have on this site, I propose an optional ranking system to be introduced in the review form.

This will quickly communicate to the reader what to expect from the game. For example:
1.Porn 2.Gameplay 3.Story this would be a porn-fest game,
1.Gameplay 2.Story 3.Porn = shooter with minimal sexual content,
1.Story 2.Gameplay 3.Porn = romantic story point and click game with lots of dialogue and rare sex scenes,
1.Gameplay 2. Story 0.Porn = action game with no nudity,
1.Gameplay 1.Porn 1. Story = very balanced game that mixes all 3 elements.

Using this system (or something similar to it) will greatly improve our ability to quickly pick games with content we are specifically interested in. Currently the best way to gauge this is to look through the pics, description and read a few reviews which is often slow, inefficient and sometimes inaccurate.

Thanks for reading and your consideration.

 

[Meaning Less]

Too messy and confusing, even you got lost on your examples and posted wrong numbers it seems.

Also I'm not conviced it is better than just looking at more specific tags, here is how to identify your same examples with tags alone:

-shooter with minimal sexual content = no VN prefix, shooter, not many sexual content tags
-romantic story point and click game with lots of dialogue and rare sex scenes = VN prefix, romance, point&click, few sexual tags
-action game with no nudity = no sexual content tag, gameplay tags like combat or similar.
-very balanced game that mixes all 3 elements. = VN prefix, with gameplay tags as well as many sexual tags.
-porn-fest game = tons of sexual content tags, not many genre/gameplay tags.

 

[rk-47]

Gameplay, story, porn. In that order
These are porn games we play but emphasis on the "game" part, if i wanted to jack off real quick i would just watch normal porn or hentai
and in some cases the porn parts get annoying because i get invested in the story's drama or mystery that i honestly dont care about the mc tryna seduce everyone and wanna know what happens next so getting a rage boner during that parts is pretty annoying

 

[DuniX]

I just want some ratings/tag to evaluate how finished the game is and if it has a satisfyingly amount of content, but since that is subjective it's pointless to even try.

My current rule of thumb:
Initial release, alpha, 0.1-0.3 = This has no content , skip.
0.4 - 0.6 = Might be interesting to check.
0.7 - 0.9 = It's basically a finished game right?

 

[Hagatagar]

Why should something like that be in a review? If anything, it should be on the game's main page.
But pointing out the main focus would be sufficient, a ranking is unnecessary and too subjective.

My current rule of thumb:
Initial release, alpha, 0.1-0.3 = This has no content , skip.
0.4 - 0.6 = Might be interesting to check.
0.7 - 0.9 = It's basically a finished game right?

Spoiler: Sorry, I couldn't resist

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[tanstaafl]

Gameplay, story, porn. In that order
These are porn games we play but emphasis on the "game" part, if i wanted to jack off real quick i would just watch normal porn or hentai

Careful with the "we" stuff. For me it's Story > Gameplay = Porn.

My current rule of thumb:
Initial release, alpha, 0.1-0.3 = This has no content , skip.
0.4 - 0.6 = Might be interesting to check.
0.7 - 0.9 = It's basically a finished game right?

Pretty much the same, but I would move 0.1s to their own line. and make 0.2-03 a skip. I use 0.1's to get an idea of the devs skill and test for horrid engrish or just check out the writing skill overall. They're also a rough indicator of how much content per update you might expect...if the dev seems like they would be consistent anyway.

Edit: Very rough indicator of how much content mind you. I've been burned by devs on this one. CarbonBlue is a good example.

 

[Warlock]

Too messy and confusing, even you got lost on your examples and posted wrong numbers it seems.

Also I'm not conviced it is better than just looking at more specific tags, here is how to identify your same examples with tags alone:

-shooter with minimal sexual content = no VN prefix, shooter, not many sexual content tags
-romantic story point and click game with lots of dialogue and rare sex scenes = VN prefix, romance, point&click, few sexual tags
-action game with no nudity = no sexual content tag, gameplay tags like combat or similar.
-very balanced game that mixes all 3 elements. = VN prefix, with gameplay tags as well as many sexual tags.
-porn-fest game = tons of sexual content tags, not many genre/gameplay tags.

The main issue with tags is that they are not quantitative. For example no sexual content tag is obvious, however all the other sexual tags can be deceiving, sometimes there is one brief anal scene in the entire 5-10 hour game so it gets that fetish tag. In fact I've seen developers "check boxes" this way to generate search traffic for their game. I've also seen several games with a lot of sexual tags that are focusing way more on story and gameplay and much less on the porn. Therefore the amount of tags is not necessarily indicative of the amount of sexual content and neither are the pictures for the same reason.

This leads to frustration, disappointment, bickering in the comments about which aspect is more important (e.g. porn vs gameplay) and potentially bad reviews from users that are looking for "porn in a game form" instead of a "game with some porn in it". Or similarly, if the user is hoping for a game focused on story or gameplay but the game is primarily focused on porn. Therefore, if we could quickly communicate the relative abundance of the 3 elements in a rough but still informative manner, it would set proper expectations and help everyone quickly find the experience they are interested in.

Also, how is it messy and confusing? What wrong numbers did I post in my examples? Seems pretty straight forward to me, maybe I can explain it better if you have specific questions. Or if you have a better idea for a less confusing quantitative rating system I'd be happy to see it.

 

[rk-47]

Careful with the "we" stuff. For me it's Story > Gameplay = Porn.



Pretty much the same, but I would move 0.1s to their own line. and make 0.2-03 a skip. I use 0.1's to get an idea of the devs skill and test for horrid engrish or just check out the writing skill overall. They're also a rough indicator of how much content per update you might expect...if the dev seems like they would be consistent anyway.

Edit: Very rough indicator of how much content mind you. I've been burned by devs on this one. CarbonBlue is a good example.

These are porn games, thats an objective fact, and WE all are "playing" them

 

[Count Morado]

My current rule of thumb:
Initial release, alpha, 0.1-0.3 = This has no content , skip.
0.4 - 0.6 = Might be interesting to check.
0.7 - 0.9 = It's basically a finished game right?

 

[whizwart]

There's gotta be balance. I'll take a good story over the other two anyday though, because the best games are ones that are engaging and well written.

City of Broken Dreamers, for instance. Story and renders are so good you could scale back the on scene sex a ton, and It would still be great.

My opposite example is A Knight's Tale. This game infurated me because it just kept having sex scenes with virtually nothing inbetween. The worst part, though, is that it kept setting up something to happen, but it never did. Walk unescorted with wife to the next town over when theres bandits in the area? Well, nothing happens. Love interest lost in the woods? Love interest 2 finds her in about 10 frames and theybjust go home. There an implied comflict with the king thay just disappers the whole game and I've heard comes back tacked on at the end. I say heard because i can't bring myself to finish it.

For me, Pale Carnations is the S tier of balance. Great story, hot scenes, and the choices you makr about how you handle the girls and the competition in the game are engaging. Plus, while theres a good guy/bad guy mechanic, its so much more grey than normal. You don't jusy become a sadist out the gate, i feel like its a slow spiral with people pushing one way or the other.

 

[tanstaafl]

These are porn games, thats an objective fact, and WE all are "playing" them

Which has nothing to do with what people look for in them. It took less than two hours for a different opinion than yours to show up so I would suggest you speak for yourself instead of trying to fake a wall of support for your opinions.

 

[redknight00]

Jerking off is a coop sport, it's always a we.

 

[Meaning Less]

Also, how is it messy and confusing? What wrong numbers did I post in my examples? Seems pretty straight forward to me, maybe I can explain it better if you have specific questions. Or if you have a better idea for a less confusing quantitative rating system I'd be happy to see it.

You know what I mean, you even edited your post to fix your mistakes. But even now things are still just as arbritary as it is with tags, there is no way to know what kind of gameplay is heavy, what kind of porn content is heavier than the other, and what kind of story theme is heavy.

What you seem to be actually looking for is a ranked system with major/minor tags, as it was already suggested in other feature request threads. And I'm not sure exactly what the new tagging system will compromise but I've seen some moderators claiming tiered tag system would be part of it. I just have no idea how or who others are going to rank things, I bet it is going to be a hassle.

 

[rk-47]

Which has nothing to do with what people look for in them. It took less than two hours for a different opinion than yours to show up so I would suggest you speak for yourself instead of trying to fake a wall of support for your opinions.

no idea why you are so pedantic, when i say "we" im clearly talking about people that have the same opinion and style of what they are looking for. Funnily enough you wanna insert yourself to make it all about you

 

[rizzfest]

1.Gameplay 1.Story 1. Porn = very balanced game that mixes all 3 elements...

My feeling is that the gameplay needs to avoid taking away from the story, and the more layers to telling the story visually and audibly the better. The story has to make me care about the characters enough to want to see what happens next, and porn in a higher caliber production tickles that need for an additional layer of fantasy to a sculpted world. The visuals need to move and feel alive even when it's mostly static renders. The sound has to carry with the actions, and ambient sounds layering into soft tone-setting music is an artform without the additional foley.

 

[Whitehoneygames]

I agree something like this needs to be implemented. Every nsfw game developer makes different kinds of games. One developer would make a game more about story, while another would focus more on gameplay, and another would focus entirely on NSFW.

So what the f95zone admins could do is put these into categories and insert the games into whichever category fits it best.

Example:

1. Gameplay Forum
2. Story Forum
3. NSFW Forum

 

[Warlock]

You know what I mean, you even edited your post to fix your mistakes. But even now things are still just as arbritary as it is with tags, there is no way to know what kind of gameplay is heavy, what kind of porn content is heavier than the other, and what kind of story theme is heavy.

No I do not know what you mean. I edited the main post because silly me made a mistake on the very first word, from "I order to cater" to "In order to cater". I changed noting about the ranking system examples which in my opinion are clear as day.

When you play a game you can roughly appreciate the how much of it is focused on gameplay how much it is focused on story how much it is focused on porn. These are all rough subjective estimates that you can optionally add to your review. You rank them 1 2 3 or 0 if that element is missing, two or more elements can have the same rank if you feel they are on par. Users look over the reviews and quickly get a general consensus at a glance, no need to even read the full reviews. They then select a game based on their preferences instead of pointlessly arguing about what is more important which at the end of the day is also a matter of subjective taste. There, now everyone is happy. What is confusing about this, I have no idea.

Major and minor tags is an interesting approach, I think it would definitely improve the situation. If you see a game with a lot of major fetish tags for example you would know you are in for a very prony game. Perhaps as Whitehoneygames suggests we could have a "story heavy" tag or a "porn heavy tag" or "gameplay light tag" and so on, essentially "tagifying" the whole ranking system concept, that is as long as tags are assigned by some consensus. But yeah in general I think using a tag approach might work best because they are already part of the ecosystem of this community. No matter how it's actually implemented, I strongly believe it's a needed improvement.