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Rating Things a 10/10


Scasma

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I recently have been trying to rate the VN's I have played. And I discovered that I really like Song of Saya. So much so that I believe it has been one of the best stories I have ever read in any medium. I gave it a 10/10, because I enjoyed it as much as I would enjoy a masterpiece (I don't think anything is perfect, nor do I think it is possible to rate an entertainment medium objectively, so I rate based on my enjoyment instead). What I discovered is that I also enjoyed Stiens;Gate just as much as Song of Saya, and think it's just as well written. I also enjoyed School Days HQ just as much, although for slightly different reasons, as it is not well written in the same way. All of these titles I want to give a 10/10, because I seem to have enjoyed them just as much in relation to each other, albeit in different ways. I think I will probably want to give Steins;Gate 0 is 10/10 rating as well, and this poses a problem.

This means that I have given four VN's a 10/10, and VNDB says I should only ever give a maximum of three. Shit. I don't feel like I enjoyed them any less in relationship to each other, even if I enjoyed School Days for slightly different reasons. Rating them lower would means I enjoyed them less than Song of Saya. I need advice.

I sure hope I'm using these forums appropriately.

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I have a similiar case. But i don't think there is anything wrong even if you rate all the VNs you have played 10/10. It depends on you, not on some harsh system :makina:. That would just mean you only play the best ones, right? I have 3 10/10 ratings on my list. They are not all on the exactly equal level,  but not anywhere near the level where i would give them less than 10/10. So if you just enjoy everything, there is nothing wrong with giving high scores to more games

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Ratings are purely subjective and thus, except very broad judgments (9's and 10's across the board -> critically acclaimed, an average of 3-4 -> probably not worthwhile) there's really no point to a number-scale review system to consider at large except your private rankings. Some people might only give a 10 to something that's radically changed their life while others give a 10 to games that simply stuck with them. Likewise, some people will give 5 to some VNs they consider trash while for someone else will consider a 5 as "a fun but forgettable romp". 

There's also the "excelling at different things" angle to consider. I have a particular nukige (Mamankyoushitsu) that I'd definitely give a 9/10 to, but that doesn't mean I think it's as good in any comparable respect as YU-NO, a story I found rather touching and inspirational and would also rate 9/10. The only solution that appears to me, if we are to use a scalar system, is that we'd have to go beyond numbers- A triangle means "a shitty action VN", a square means "a decent action VN", a circle means "an amazing action VN"; horror VNs are judged on a scale of increasing quality on 'banana -> apple -> orange -> kiwi", etc.  And of course that in itself is a mess that probably no one wants to get into.

TL;DR: Your ratings are pretty much bullshit except the meaning they have for you.

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I always score my list how i want. 10 and 9 for me is equal, with differences 10 i want to replay someday(like reread waifu route), and 9 was enough for me.

That stupid and affect overall score? Yes. But that not my problem, because site(also Mal) does not provide me custom lists.(Btw i use "Stalled" for nukige wish list, "droped" for normal wish list, "playing" for TL in process, and "wish list" by itself for diffrent category wish like vn with marriage or osananajimi). Maybe soon i will use 1 and 2 scores to tag something for myself(Lo vns in nukige wish list?)

Yeah, i know how that sound. But anyway scores means nothing, never look at it when choosing vn.

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I suggest you establish your own rating system. What things must 10 tier VNs possess? What qualities does 9 tier VN need to possess?

Alternatively, you could do it like I do and rate them based on how much you enjoyed them. I find that by the end I just know what they deserve, or have a very good idea.
Surprisingly, given that I give 9/10's left and right, I only have a 10/10.

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I mean let's be honest with ourselves a true 10/10 visual novel doesn't exist, even if we make sure to factor in subjective tastes, I am confident that we can all point out various flaws in our favorite visual novels. A numerical system of rating is inherently flawed in that complex opinions can't be converted into a number without striping allot of the complex opinion of its' meaning. 

I would recommend that you revisit some of your ratings after you have read a dozen plus more visual novels. You currently have a relatively low amount of visual novels rated, so your ratings might be a bit skewed in certain ways. After expanding the amount of titles read you may look back and rate some visual novels differently. 

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1 hour ago, Mr Poltroon said:

I suggest you establish your own rating system. What things must 10 tier VNs possess? What qualities does 9 tier VN need to possess?

Alternatively, you could do it like I do and rate them based on how much you enjoyed them. I find that by the end I just know what they deserve, or have a very good idea.
Surprisingly, given that I give 9/10's left and right, I only have a 10/10.

For the rating system I have, most of the VN's I appreciate and did something admirably well get a rating between 8.2 and 8.6. The reason why I don't give out ratings higher than 9 often is that at those highest levels my scale isn't even really well defined. It's hard for me to tell what properties a VN had that made it excellent in many areas, or outstanding in something it did. So upon finishing a really good series, without further examination, I can "this is probably at least a 9"

At the end of the day, the numerical rating is just a memory jog for what things you liked/disliked, and what you thought the VN did well or not. Different VN's are trying to do different things, so their ratings aren't comparable to other VN's unless the two are closely related in genre. That is to say, there isn't much meaning in directly comparing their ratings and trying to draw something from that.

Edited by Chronopolis
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2 hours ago, Scasma said:

This means that I have given four VN's a 10/10, and VNDB says I should only ever give a maximum of three. Shit. I don't feel like I enjoyed them any less in relationship to each other, even if I enjoyed School Days for slightly different reasons. Rating them lower would means I enjoyed them less than Song of Saya. I need advice.

Rating systems are useless at delivering any sort of detailed information to the viewer. All it gives is a rather vague impression of whether a person liked or disliked it. The important information is the reasoning (text) behind the rating, often given in the form of a review. Because of this, a super-precise rating system isn't needed and you should just fling out any number that feels right. 

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If you wanted to rate a game as perfect you would have to rate it something like 10,000/10,000, because 10 only steps arent enough for that.

Not that I ever cared about rating when choosing to play something.

If anything I'd prefer a up/down vote system. A simple did you like it or not.

Not that what other people think matters in any way, because everyone's but my own opinion are shit. :Kappa:

 

Personally, I don't really rate things either, I am more like "yeah, this game is the shit" or "haha, no. thanks, get the fuck outta here" :yumiko:

 

Just as other people said, rate things however you want. (Your opinion is probably shit anyway).

Edited by Ningen
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I do think there's a value in always having an average score of around 5, because it means you're making the most of the space you have.

I only watch/read stuff I expect to enjoy and almost never give scores below a 7, and I consider that a weakness, since it means I have no real idea of what I hate.

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If I'd ever rate anything on a 10 mark scale, I'd start from 5 as the average and either increase or decrease the score depending on factors. Obviously, I don't rate anything anymore, because it's hard to be completely objective, especially about the things you like - your love for particular things coulds your mind, no matter what. There's also a bunch of different factors involved - whether a person is willing to drop his suspension of disbelief (thus raising the score), or whether things in a particular work trigger them (and as such, lower the score considerably). Certain aspects might raise the score for particular people. Some works are really good and deserve praise, others don't. Some games are easily reachable to a far wider audience, while others cater to particular niches. Certain games might have good bits, even if they don't leave much of an impression as a whole. Some stories start off good and then kill all the tension and excitement along the way to end in the worst kind of way possible. There is literally no way any score system could provide a wholesome and objective ranking.

Nowadays, I simply summarize and try to point out the most obvious flaws, whilst trying to dwelve into things, that make the essence of a particular visual novel; I don't over-glorify, nor shit on games. I simply provide information as to why I think a particular game might be considered above or below average and if it's truly worth mentioning - why particular games excell within their medium, to the point of being worthy considered masterpieces; that or at least highly recomended vn's.

That aside, people became way too subjective nowadays. It's one of the reasons why every game is 10/10 and an instant masterpiece. I used to give higher scores in the past myself. Nowadays, I'd rate most of those games far lower, even if I still liked them a lot. The truth is, majority of decent vn's doesn't really deserve a score above 6, if we'd try to keep close to the original guidelines created by some major archives, like vndb for example. The good thing is, the more you play, the less skewed your opinions become and the more valuable they might get for another person. Still, I'd treat everything others say with a grain of salt - the best kind of opinion will be always that of your own.

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That rating system just doesn't work with art in general, it doesn't matter if it's for games, films, music, etc. You can only rate something 10/10 if it's a test and you already know the correct answers. You can try to change it as much as you want, it won't work (5/5, 7/7, 10.000/10.000) because is subjective. Thats why steam uses the ''Recommended/Not recommended'' system.

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I never rate anything as 10/10 and never will rate, to me only a perfect work in all aspects can receive this score and honestly i think that we will never see a perfect vn.

That said i think that these rates on vndb are very flawed(principally in non-tranlated vns), everyone use different methods to evaluate and is very hard to give a score without personal bias.

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Numeric scores are an obvious indicator of reviewers either being lazy frauds which can't be bothered to think outside of their own, comfortable shoe box or opportunists which know that review scores clickbait the average internet browsing doofus into creating traffic for their badly written and barely researched articles. (here you can find plenty examples of both).

In order to reach enlightenment, scrap all your scores and tell everyone who uses them (especially for business purposes) to fuck off. There are better ways of getting your thoughts of joy or discomfort across than with an arbitrary number.

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6 minutes ago, TexasDice said:

Numeric scores are an obvious indicator of reviewers either being lazy frauds which can't be bothered to think outside of their own, comfortable shoe box or opportunists which know that review scores clickbait the average internet browsing doofus into creating traffic for their badly written and barely researched articles. (here you can find plenty examples of both).

In order to reach enlightenment, scrap all your scores and tell everyone who uses them (especially for business purposes) to fuck off. There are better ways of getting your thoughts of joy or discomfort across than with an arbitrary number.

the scores arent pointless. theyre no different than the system of "perfect, great, good, okay, indifferent, meh, bad, horrible, unreadable" you just have it in numbers.

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In my opinion, everyone should just vote their bias on titles. Volume will then sort things out so that people that have opinions highly correlated with public opinion can use the combined rating. Everyone else never had a chance anyway, and will have to rely on reviews from people that generally form similar opinions to their own.

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In support of the pro-ratings side to the debate, I actually do think ratings aren't a complete waste of time. It's true that in the grand scheme of things, a number isn't always the best reflection of a VN's real quality as it widely depends on human judgment, which is fundamentally flawed. But at the same time, it can be an ideal system for those that haven't really established a hard set of standards for a certain entertainment medium, which could give them the leeway to discover great works based on the accumulation of scores that give VNs a high rank on a database. Chances are, if the vast majority of people like the work, a newcomer would likely enjoy it as well, and this may possibly open the door for reading more works in the future. The key thing to focus on is the relative ease of the rating system and what it can mean for others. As your tastes develop, you might find ratings to be less relevant to your interests, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. You might eventually find yourself branching away completely from mainstream opinions, or maybe just loosely, after seeing what some works have to offer, how often they rely on particular tropes, and eventually learning what makes a work truly stand out in terms of uniqueness and presentation. But that depends entirely on how much time you spend on a medium, and I personally believe you'd be hard pressed to find someone new to the scene that wouldn't like a VN with a high rating.

Not saying it applies to everyone, but that it probably will apply to most. I can't say for sure since I haven't done hard research on the matter. It's mostly speculation.

Edit: That said, I think scores should be entirely based on enjoyability above all else. That's probably the only thing that'll likely matter to those who use the rating system to choose VNs to read.

Edited by Kenshin_sama
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4 hours ago, AaronIsCrunchy said:

^ Basically what Mitch said.

In addition, remember this -- the lower you rate popular VNs the more elite you appear, boosting that dank weeb street cred. Easy on those 10's boy :makina:

The troll is strong with this one, yes.  Post strong trolls, you will.  But for maximum effect, you can't just give a bad review to a good - I mean, popular game.  You want to make sure to insult people who like popular things.  Never mind that something is popular because lots of people like it, liking a popular game automatically means that you have no taste.  If you really wanna troll, you can't just rate Steins;Gate a 6.  You also have to post a condescending review like this:

[sarcasm]Steins;Gate huh more like Steins;Grate amirite folks? Haha, all you folks out there with good taste know what I'm talking about.  I'm just shocked at how many sheeple there are out there that like this lowest-common-denominator crap :yumiko:[/sarcasm]

Edited by Nandemonai
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