What is a game that you love and highly rated, but when you went to check its rating you were suprised it was rated low?

[MarshmallowCasserole]

Is there even an objective truth to reviewing?

For example, I happen to like Tolstoy's "War and Peace". I think it's an amazingly complex and deep story. I would rate it 5 stars. Since it is widely regarded as one of the great literary works of humanity, critics seem to agree with me.

But I can also see why people would rate it 1 star.

That's true, but we don't base ratings on just one user. We poll multiple users, and Tolstoy on average would get a high score (if our polling sample is good, yadda yadda all these disclaimers apply). These 1 star ratings would be outliers.

Trying to be objective in your reviews is nice, but it's never gonna beat just getting more, better samples.

Again I don't see how this is close to any truth, if anything ratings of lower versions tend to be higher exactly because often times the best is at the start where the story was well though, so if anything quality tends to go down with time because devs run out of ideas or similar.

Hm... Let's try this: take an already existing good, finished game or story. Now cut it in half and pretend the second half does not exist. Was it an improvement, or a diminishment?

When it comes to stories, they are generally required to have proper endings to be considered good. So, an incomplete story (or game delivering said story) is going to be worse than its would-be complete version.

Agree on the rest.

 

[User4862]

Don't flatter yourself, I put no efforts in that.




Can you be consistent for an instant ?
You can't use proof that reviews opened to anyone lead to pure bullshit, as demonstration that official reviewers, selected for their ability to be as impartial as possible, what VoidTraveler talk about, are a bad thing. It's purely ridiculous.




You see, when I said that I put no efforts, it's because everything is coming from you. You're saying it yourself, you don't want reviewers selected for their honesty, what you want is reviewers that will have the same interest than you, whatever how wrong they can be.

Thanks for your cooperation.

What I want in a review is honesty about the good and bad, because that's what's informative.

You're putting in a lot of effort to lie about me. There's no perfect solution to reviews. All methods will have their problems. But a difference between 95% according to "Verified Audience" and 56% according to all audience indicates the "Verified Audience" were clearly not selected for their honesty or impartiality. It shows the stark contrast between the system you seem to want ("Verified Reviewer") and the system that's currently in place, especially when taking into consideration of how poor the movie was.

You accuse me of not wanting honesty when I said that people should be allowed to share their opinions. You accuse me of not wanting honesty, when what you're arguing for is a Ministry of Truth for the review system. It's weird. Maybe you don't realize the potential of that's what it could become, but it's there. It's also weird that you're conflating not wanting honesty with a person finding a reviewer they trust. Because trusting a band recommendation from a person you know has similar musical tastes means you just want to be lied to, apparently.

If your intention is to run me off this topic, good job. You're not even capable of a good faith conversation.

 

[anne O'nymous]

You accuse me of not wanting honesty when I said that people should be allowed to share their opinions.

Where did I accuse you ?
And no, wanting one thing in place of another do not mean that you don't want that "another thing", just that it's not your priority, what is different.

You accuse me of not wanting honesty, when what you're arguing for is a Ministry of Truth for the review system.

Where did I said, or even just indirectly implied, that I want this ?

You're not even capable of a good faith conversation.

 

[Yngling]

but Tolstoy and Dostoevsky's Russian is terrible.

Interesting... Perhaps Tolstoy's first language was French instead of Russian? But for Dostoyevsky, I don't think so.
Unfortunately my Russian is extremely limited...

Tolstoy on average would get a high score (if our polling sample is good, yadda yadda all these disclaimers apply). These 1 star ratings would be outliers.

I don't think so. I think, if you ask 100 random people from the general population in a West European country to read War and Peace, perhaps only 1 would finish and like it. Maybe 4 others would finish it out of a sense of duty but hate it. The rest would just give up after 10-20 pages or so.

 

[Icarus Media]

Something that I see a lot of in reviews and it annoys me.
Is people saying something has potential.
I don't care what might happen in the future I want to know about the game now.

3/5 post has potential.

 

[Meaning Less]

Hm... Let's try this: take an already existing good, finished game or story. Now cut it in half and pretend the second half does not exist. Was it an improvement, or a diminishment?

Really depends on what happens in the second half, plenty of shows and games turned to shit in the second half and would actually be better if they ended before that.

When it comes to stories, they are generally required to have proper endings to be considered good. So, an incomplete story (or game delivering said story) is going to be worse than its would-be complete version.

Again not necessarily, a good ending can help something that wasn't that good, but it is isn't nearly as important as the meat of the story imo.

It just sounds like you can't review anything without extrapolating, but that's not what you should be doing, just review what is there already, think of a trilogy, people can rate each part individually, even if the first two movies don't have the final ending yet.

Once you watch the third movie, if the ending sucks, do you go back and rate everything down? That would be unfair if you enjoyed the first two movies before seeing the ending, instead you should just lower your rating on the final movie.

Similarly with ongoing reviews, if things change after a certain number of updates and things are now better/worse, you can just update your review to the most recent version.

 

[MarshmallowCasserole]

I don't think so. I think, if you ask 100 random people from the general population in a West European country to read War and Peace, perhaps only 1 would finish and like it. Maybe 4 others would finish it out of a sense of duty but hate it. The rest would just give up after 10-20 pages or so.

We're missing an important metric here, how many of these people will hate all books you ask them to read. My guess is a lot. Reading is a niche hobby.

But if you go on, say, Goodreads that is inherently biased against people who don't like reading in general, I have a strong hunch W&P will do fairly well. It would be probably one of the higher rated classics, with a generally positive rating. Above 4 out of 5 is my guess.

Really depends on what happens in the second half, plenty of shows and games turned to shit in the second half and would actually be better if they ended before that.

That kinda violates the condition of the exercise, taking a good show or game. Yeah, works with inconsistent quality happen, and predicting shifts in quality is impossible. That's not the point.

Again not necessarily, a good ending can help something that wasn't that good, but it is isn't nearly as important as the meat of the story imo.

Would you watch a murder mystery movie without last 30 minutes? I would not, there is no point.

Genuinely try it, find a good movie with some high tension plot and force yourself stop, after watching only 2/3 of it. It will be definitely less pleasant than watching it in full.

Think of a trilogy, people can rate each part individually, even if the first two movies don't have the final ending yet.

I think people have re-evaluated Rothfuss' trilogy a bit. I am definitely seeing a big sentiment shift around ASOIAF as people start to realize they aren't getting two final books. Ever.

 

[Meaning Less]

Genuinely try it, find a good movie with some high tension plot and force yourself stop, after watching only 2/3 of it. It will be definitely less pleasant than watching it in full.

Again, you are taking something that is already completed and removing part of it, that's why it isn't a good comparison, a movie will only ever be released if they already have an ending.

Games being release in chunks are more akin to tv shows, they are made in a way that they can work even without the ending, and many will never end, so endings are even less important there.

But even then what you are talking about is that you are someone that should never review a game before it is completed, because you need all the information.

That is a fair stance to take, just know that not everyone is like that, others can be objective about the current content and the people looking to play the currently incomplete game are also looking for those reviews.

People that can't enjoy a game until it is fully completed most likely are also waiting for reviews made for the final version.

 

[nulnil]

You know what actually? I think it would be even better if the whole "star" system was removed altogether.

 

[Meaning Less]

You know what actually? I think it would be even better if the whole "star" system was removed altogether.

But why though? Even though the current system is poorly used doesn't mean we should remove it. At least it helps some people I guess.

But if you really want you can always add the following filters to your adblock and not even stumble upon reviews accidentally:
f95zone.to##.bratr-rating.br-widget
f95zone.to##.resource-tile_info-meta_rating
f95zone.to###btn-sort_rating.filter-block_button-wrap

I like browsing like this because I don't get distracted by nonsense and when I'm looking for actual reviews I just open the reviews tab.

 

[VMiller]

Interesting... Perhaps Tolstoy's first language was French instead of Russian?

In the early 19th century high society and even the nobility in the provinces in Russia spoke French among themselves. Literary Russian appeared later than the time described in Tolstoy's novel. There is even an opinion that Pushkin's first language (he was one of the creators of the Russian literary language and the greatest writer) was French. But he knew a large number of languages, and he learned English on his own in a short time and translated works from it into Russian.

 

[Yngling]

We're missing an important metric here, how many of these people will hate all books you ask them to read. My guess is a lot. Reading is a niche hobby.

But if you go on, say, Goodreads that is inherently biased against people who don't like reading in general, I have a strong hunch W&P will do fairly well. It would be probably one of the higher rated classics, with a generally positive rating. Above 4 out of 5 is my guess.

Now you are already making a distinction in demographics.

My example was to round up 100 (or any larger, statistically more relevant, number) of random people on the street, give them "War and Peace" (translated in their local language) and order them to write a review within two months or so.

Of course if you ask members of a book club you'll get different results.

But I disagree about reading as a niche (or elite in my words) hobby. I think a good amount of people read books, even if they are just pulp novels.

When we come back to adult gaming, I don't know who's playing them and what kind of background or education they have.

In my experience here on the forum, I would guess:
- Mostly male
- Higher than average age
- Higher than average education
But if that's true or not is difficult to say.

Even when comparing the amount of total members to the members who actually post you'll find already a huge difference here. But people who are lurkers presumably still play these games even if they don't discuss them for whatever reason.

 

[MarshmallowCasserole]

you need all the information.

That's what I'm talking about. I don't. But I acknowledge that rating an incomplete story is somewhat different from a complete one. Strictly speaking, I am rating just like you want, only based on content that is already in the game.

But I also rate based on content that is absent from the game. Specifically, a proper story has the build up, resolution, and denouement. If I get a story that is marked as complete that has only build up and no resolution, I am going to rate it low. Because it's bad, unsatisfying storytelling. But if I rate an incomplete story that doesn't have resolution, then I am not going to deduct points, because there's a good natural explanation: the story simply hasn't yet been written to that point. This is at its core a charitable assumption I'm willingly giving. It's a suspension of regular reviewing process, because a resolution is potentially in the works.

The review process is therefore distinctly different. Incomplete games don't get points docked for incomplete arcs and unresolved conflicts (because these would be absurd to demand of them). But that's potential.

To sum the whole argument, as long as it's in the form "I expect the work to complete the major story beats with quality consistent to what's already available", then it's not a grievous sin.

Now you are already making a distinction in demographics.

So are you? You're asking people on a street (introduces various bias like age, disabilities, lifestyles, etc), in a Western country to boot (self-explanatory).

I just don't think that's a problem. The whole purpose of ratings is to help people find content. Why would I ask people who don't like writing for advice on what to read? Some demographics selection is well justified, given the purpose.

 

[Daxter250]

You can't trust most "reviews" on F95.
And that in large part is thanks to F95 allowing any random yolo to leave his poop in the review section of any thread.

To ever have any hope of fixing this mess, F95 needs to create another job here - Reviewer.
Select people who can review properly, and let those trusted people do the job of reviewing.

i bet my reviews would be a bit too long for some

but yeah, could need a rework. many peeps are actually thumbing up reviews they think represents their opinion or found helpful. maybe make it so that you either review or thumb up and if you thumb up, you automatically give the same rating as the review you thumbed up. also have the reviews sort by thumb ups maybe?

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

i bet my reviews would be a bit too long for some

Yeah, some of mine too. Especially the more recent ones.
I sometimes spend days writing them piece by piece as i research/play the game.
And some other times i wonder why the hell do i even bother, 'tis not like F95 is paying me for it lol.

but yeah, could need a rework. many peeps are actually thumbing up reviews they think represents their opinion or found helpful. maybe make it so that you either review or thumb up and if you thumb up, you automatically give the same rating as the review you thumbed up. also have the reviews sort by thumb ups maybe?

Likely bad idea unless what i want is introduced, that is to say - trusted F95 reviewer system.
Otherwise like now we'll have certain F95 circles upvoting worthless "reviews" that are made just to shit on the dev.

 

[Daxter250]

Likely bad idea unless what i want is introduced, that is to say - trusted F95 reviewer system.
Otherwise like now we'll have certain F95 circles upvoting worthless "reviews" that are made just to shit on the dev.

hm true, but at least we get more votes into the system.

even going for established reviewers could be a bad thing. they could become entitled, make em think their word is divine or some shit. and we wont get any reviews for not so known titles.

maybe we should hire IGN

 

[TheMagicalGurl]

https://f95zone.to/threads/accidental-woman-v1-16-1-cheats-thaumx.4280/ currently has a 2.2 star rating.

WHAT?! ......... WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTT?!?!?

 

[Soniram]

When I'm looking into game reviews (which is pretty often), I don't pay much attention to 5 star or 1 star reviews, especially if they are short. I'm looking for two things.

1. 2-4 star reviews. They're not fawning, and they're not hating. There's a reason they are rating it that, and they'll likely say why. They're going to be the most honest about what they found good and bad in it.

2. Length of review and presentation. If it's a rambling, one paragraph mess, it's going to be difficult for me to read. They also tend to move from topic to topic without any break. If it's a good medium-to-long length and is actually broken up into paragraphs, it catches my eye and I read it.

Anything else just gets passed over. I don't need to know if "it's the best game ever made OMG!" or "it has NTR, this sucks!" or whatever. If someone doesn't put forth the effort to actually write a review and be honest about it, it's worthless to me as a possible player.

 

[Yngling]

So are you? You're asking people on a street (introduces various bias like age, disabilities, lifestyles, etc), in a Western country to boot (self-explanatory).

"Asking people on the street" is also a figure of speech. I don't mean literally going to one specific street, catching everybody and locking them up until they've read and reviewed War and Peace...

The purpose of a random sample group in statistics is to remove bias.

I just don't think that's a problem. The whole purpose of ratings is to help people find content. Why would I ask people who don't like writing for advice on what to read? Some demographics selection is well justified, given the purpose.

You'll end up writing for a very specific target group. And you won't know if those are actually your target group or not.

 

[Cosy Creator]

I'm naturally sceptical of any system that puts all the power into the hands of a small group of people. Trusted reviewers sounds like a good way to get a clique of select forum users who decide which games succeed and which ones don't, at least to the extent that reviews impact success.

Furthermore, over the years I've observed a pattern among people who make reviewing entertainment media a part of their identity: they're invariably up themselves. After a while they seem to forget the core purpose of the things they're reviewing, and instead pursue ever more esoteric ways of being snobbish.