Lol, I edited that beginning part, because originally the post was different but then I changed it to that and forgot to change the first sentence.

I still think cavemakers will be more satisfied with peoples rates if they found out how they came to the average. It sounds like it'd be simple to implement.

Yes but there is an extremely major flaw in your reasoning. If there is a level with difficulty 10/10, then fun 4/10, and quality 5/10, that's 6/10 for a bad level. That's because difficulty is considered bad if too high therefore it should be separate.

That's why the three seperate rates will show, along with the average. There are already ways to make it so people can't rate difficulty, so I'm sure if people wanted their level to be rated one way then they could simply call it "Fun Level" (Only Fun-factor rates), "Difficult Level" (Only Difficulty rates), and "Novelty Level" (Already implemented)

My problem with GF's idea with the averaging out is:
-It changes the difficulty rating into a quality-of-difficulty rating, where 5/5 is perfect, and 0/5 is ridiculous (either super easy or super hard)
-It might (??) force people to submit three ratings at once, whenever you want to rate a level. That takes more work and may lead to people being lazy and rating even less.
-It automatically averages things out for the player, who may have different tastes on how the fields should be weighed.

Here's my current vision for a good level rate system:
-one main overall rating which is out of 10
-two sub ratings that you may or may not fill out: fun and difficulty, both out of five.
-difficulty rates categorize levels on whether they are easy or hard, but the fun rates may end up acting like a popularity meter, where fun levels that aren't necessarily well designed can still get acknowledgement.

EDIT: man, posted on top of by GF with a 2-minute difference again.

I agree with everything Livio said.

In fact, we should present it around the site like that. The "Main Level Rating" and the two "Sub Ratings".

But no averaged rate of them all combined, right?

yeah that's what I meant.

Responses to everything in order:
- It shouldn't change anything.. It's just the same difficulty rate as before..
- Enterting 3 numbers, damn.
- That shouldn't be a problem.. The rating system this way would be more fair as you'd have a reason for your average rate (which is what we have now except nobody has good reasons for what their rate has come too)

I'm confused with what goldfun is trying to say...

We can't have the overall combined rate because high difficulty and high quality are completely different things, and we have separate opinions on what is good difficulty or not. If something is 4.5/5 difficulty I think it is very hard and crazy, then I might not like the level. But shos might like the level and rate it better.

Yeah but right now people are combining how hard/annoying a level is in their rate. People can't see how everything played out to get their overall rate (or the average rate I'm suggesting..)

but wouldn't that mean that the higher the rating (and therefore, the harder the cave), the higher it's average quality rating? That's not necessarily true all the time, and hopefully wileywoo doesn't have to come out of the shadows to explain it...

yeah, it might seem a little absurd, but it's plausible. Make people go through more hoops to do something and they'll be less likely to do it.

And I guess it would lead to a more consistent level of ratings for all levels. But then again, you're increasing the amount of numbers involved, and if each one has a level of arbitrariness to it, it could amplify the total amount of arbitrariness in the total rating system. ... I wonder if that thought made sense....

Also there would be a conflict of interests. What if you played a level, loved it so much that you thought it deserved at least a 9, but after giving your honest opinions to the three rates, you ended up with an 8. The player may be inclined to bias the other ratings to make it reach 9. Not only that, but your averaging system would be streamlining the concept of what makes a quality level. What if the player disagrees with which factors are most important for the overall rating? There would certainly be a level of dissatisfaction with the system and the level database. And we don't want that.

goldfun, are you forgetting this rule?

hard=/=fun

seriously, someone could rate the level 10/10 difficulty, 5/5 quality, and that would equal 7.5/10 overall which is considered good, even though the player didn't like the level

Seeing how someone came to their number certainly would be convenient. However, like I said, there are several times when the player simply doesn't put much serious thought into what number to choose. We could force people to put in more info with their rates, but that can become another obstacle in the process. And setting things up so that the site makes the overall rating for you just doesn't go well with a lot of people

- Well people, as we are now, are already putting the difficulty into their rating.

- People would have to enter 3 numbers with your system too?

- If the averaged rate reached an 8, then that must be what it deserves. < FAIR. If people messed with the system which would obviously still be possible, then it'd just go back to what we have now.

Where the hell did you get the 5/5 from? I'm saying a scale of 10 for all three rates..

But you've given me another idea: What if we added some kind of feature called "Reviews" where players can post in-depth reviews for a level. I have no idea what the feature would actually do, but the idea is that if we gave anything the name of "Review" then people would be more inclined to put more effort into it. Especially if it was a feature separate from a regular "rating", so that it feels more significant.

That just takes it back to the lazy factor. No ones gonna do that.

goldfun, you're missing something.

9/10 quality.
9/10 fun.
5/10 difficulty.

That's an 8.

that's not what it deserves.

oops, mistake. I meant 5/10 quality.

Well, evidently it is. I don't think the difficulty on an "amazing" quality and fun level would be that low, anyways..

Lol, if you really want in-depth reviews then remind them that they can gain karma if their rating is very in-depth and reasonable.

Oh, nevermind -- I looked at it thinking it was 10/10 since it was 100% (5/5) before.

You mean people are rating harder levels higher? If they are, it's either because they are amazed at the supposed amazingness of large epic levels, and not because it's super hard. If you were to ask them if they rated it high b/c it was hard, they would probably say no.

yeah but they are independent of each other and you can choose which ones you want to fill out. The main rating is what most people care about, and then there are the sub/side ratings for those who are interested.

And I think that setting up a system that streamlines the way we measure quality is a mistake. People should be free to decide that for themselves. Even if it is flawed according to other perspectives, giving the user that freedom is ultimately more important than the accuracy of the rates.

and laziness is only a problem when a task is mandatory. The idea behind making something called "reviews" is so that when people see it, they might be interested or inspired enough to try it--but they don't have to. Once inside the feature, they may feel obligated to write a decent description of how they rated the level. I dunno, it's not very practical, but I'm mainly just messing with people's psychology here.