Template talk:Ratings

Perfect vs Excellent

From Talk:Stereoscopic 3D Support and Compatibility/Sandbox, it occurred to me that we should bring one of the things proposed there over here! We should change "Perfect" to "Excellent". Excellent provides a way to allow minor errors in, such as shader compilation stuttering that is minor for every single game, without it interfering with the rating. And it should finally ease the "this is not perfect!" arguments, since the bar would be lower! It's also a drop in change for the 5th star, and very simple for us to do. What do you think guys? - MaJoR (talk) 10:13, 29 November 2015 (CET)

One thing to note is that the emulator would need to be updated too. I wanted to ask here first though. I'm pretty sure it will go well there, but it's something to consider when thinking about this. - MaJoR (talk) 11:29, 29 November 2015 (CET)

I very much dislike revising things so that the top rating isn't perfect. If some title is not perfect, then there should still be things to be worked on in the emulator related to it, and I don't what that to be lost as we start applying 5 star to imperfectly emulated titles. In theory we should have already resolved "shader compilation stuttering" resulting in imperfect ratings by migrating those problems to "Emulation Info" rather than under "Problems". Kolano (talk) 17:44, 29 November 2015 (CET)

We should be careful with "Perfect" rating, like, should we consider a game that need specific settings as "Perfect" or if a game needs settings that'll make it run very slow but accurate, should it get a Perfect rating too? That's the main issue I'm seeing with our current system, we lack a well defined set of aspects to quickly define what specific rating a game should get. Our current definitions are too vague and leads to different understandings, like this particular case... - Jhonn (talk) 18:23, 29 November 2015 (CET)

That is kind of what this is meant to deal with. We've had games that were perfect, and when a super minor bug is discovered, even though it was there all along, it is demoted to 4 stars. By lowering the standard just a little bit, a lot of problems will be reduced. "Perfect" is an impossible standard! A little give will smooth out a lot of issues in the rating system, imo. - MaJoR (talk) 08:43, 30 November 2015 (CET)

"Perfect" in technical sense, yes, it's impossible to emulate a game like perfect. When it comes to rate the compatibility with a game, it's true that when there's a minor (yet legit) bug discovered then it will receive 4 stars in an instant, it's also far easier to comprehend and manage. Just wait until that game has zero active problems in the "Problems" section. Be grateful that there is Emu Info section exists for non-genuine problems! It's matter of what in sense does the term "Perfect" refer to. And for some reason the term "Excellent" doesn't get along well with "Playable" and other terms in the compatibility rating list. Lucario (talk) 11:02, 30 November 2015 (CET)

Why would Excellent not get along with Playable? :/ It seems fine to me. - MaJoR (talk) 14:27, 30 November 2015 (CET)

The definition behind five rating sets feels distinctive from each others. I think it's perfect (not technical of course!). The definition of "Excellent" will blur the bar between "Playable" and "Perfect" and will not end well as if there's debate between whether the problem is quite "minor" or not. We shouldn't be splitting hairs there. With "Perfect", anytime there is a problem then let the other four rating sets do the job. They're based on where the point it crashed during the emulation. If no crash, gameplay progress fine, but still has problem, "Playable" it is. Lucario (talk) 07:34, 2 December 2015 (CET)

How is that confusing? Playable is hardly a high bar! 4 stars is more or less a "lack of severe issues". Excellent would more or less be the same as Perfect, but with a small change - the global bugs, undiscovered bugs, and all of those things we ignore and allow us to call it perfect just because the problems area is empty? It's tolerable now, because it's NOT PERFECT! This isn't about changing our rating system at all, it's about changing the word we use to describe the 5th star to better reflect how we are using it. Not to mention getting rid of the pretense of "perfection" which zero games qualify for as long as shader compilation stuttering exists. - MaJoR (talk) 17:30, 2 December 2015 (CET)