ACRA'S PROFILE

It's probably fine if it's something like Final Fantasy II, where you're absolutely slaughtered in an encounter within seconds of starting. So long as it's abundantly clear 'you're not supposed to win this fight, at all', it's likely not an issue. The less clear that loss is, the worse it is, as until you die, the player'll probably feel like they're doing something wrong.

There's not really anything to gain by making fakes or intentionally lying about a game's length like there is with a review. Unless you're aiming to target a specific kind of audience or think it'd be hilarious to have your game's average playtime as 13:37 or something dumb like that. For the former, all I can see is you just kicking the game from one audience to another, and chances are, irritating your new target when they find the misinformation. Besides, how exactly do you moderate a number? Unless they know something's up, it's pretty hard to prove its falsehood.

I also wouldn't fret too much about which way takes more effort to code in; they both require checking a particular dropdown box, and finding the average among those reviews, whatever form they take. Or at least, that's what comes to my mind.

And again, all but the most popular games here struggle to have more than one or two reviews, and all this talk about averages kind of demands a certain quantity behind it (I also believe there's a certain stigma/intimidation factor that prevents as many people from writing full reviews that hinders this, but that could me as an extreme outsider looking in). Also, those who go into a game with the intent to review probably have a different mindset and pacing than those just looking for a good time. Putting it only on full-length reviews would push it to the high end of the spectrum, just as letting the developer set it would push towards the short end.

I also think there's a lot of merit in doing something similar to howlongtobeat.com, not exclusively for measuring game length, but to also gauge where player dropoff is and help developers find weak spots within a game.

If you look on howlongtobeat.com's individual completions for a game, it gives a little space for a comment. Often these are things like 'skipped as much dialogue as possible', 'finished all sidequests', or 'played through half of NG+ for trophy X'. Sometimes it's something more like 'beat boss X, which I'm going to call completing the game, even though it totally isn't'. And that's what made me think.

Rather than demand a completed time be given, it could easily be used to say how far one was in the game when they quit, in addition to how long before they quit. This doesn't have to be anything super-specific, even something like 'got bored in the third dungeon', 'had to grind too much after water palace', or 'didn't know where to go after getting the flute'. Because, and I just might be wrong, but the vast majority of people don't actually finish RPGMaker games. That is at least some form of meaningful feedback besides a full-fledged review, of which I know are far and few between. Failing that, it's at least a measure of how long most people play the game, and whether or not that's a more important metric than time to complete it is a separate concern.

EDIT: Later noticed that howlongtobeat.com actually HAS a thing like that, in the Retired tab. Doesn't really change my point, though. And yes, I'm aware there's a certain nature to say 'I'll get back to playing this', and never actually do, thus never submitting anything, but the option being there is more important than it being used in ideal circumstances.

What exactly constitutes as crafting and what's just upgrading is nebulous at best, so pardon if I cross any lines. I think the important thing is that you can go back after like five months and not just completely glaze out over figuring out what the next step even is.

For instance, in Dark Souls, you're just handing your stuff over to various shirtless old dudes to upgrade stuff for you along linear paths. Mostly. In Dark Souls 2/3, upgrades are along one path (using either Titanite for most weapons, Twinkling for 'weird stuff', and Dragon Bones / Titanite Scales for Boss Weapons), and then you can add one attribute (Fire, Poison, Raw, Simple, Sharp, etc.), which is totally separate from upgrading. Within reason, you can make any weapon work well for any given build with this. Everything is good and simple; you can come back, ages later, see 'oh, this mace is +8, this must be a backup weapon. All I need to do to improve it is to find more Titanite Chunks. If I find a Fire Gem to put into it, it could help out with, like, those lightning knights that give me trouble.'

Back in the first game though, upgrading was a jaggedy branching mess. Weapons first had to go to +5, where they could stay on the basic path, or go down one of like four different branches, that all branch twice more again. If you wanted, say, a fire weapon, you'd have to get the weapon to +5, track down the skeleton blacksmith in possibly the least safe place in the world, hope he doesn't get murdered by a wheel skeleton, and then upgrade it to a Fire +1 weapon. Yeah, everything ends with a different + number. Raw is +15, Fire, Magic, and Blessed are +10, and Twinkling, Lightning, and Chaos are +5. Also, you probably had to fetch an Ember at the bottom of a blindingly orange hellscape, so there's that issue too. Anyway, from Fire +1, you're now using Green Titanite. Then later Red Titanite past +5. You'll find ample amounts of all colours of Titanite, but that last upgrades come from Slabs, and I recall several of which are easily missable; One of like twenty things went wrong with Seigmeyer's sidequest? No Slab for you.

In both cases, it seems like the intent is to encourage you to have multiple viable weapons of different inclinations, but in Dark Souls 1's case, you're really, really not getting anything from White or Blue Titanite unless you're committed to it. It's also worth noting in all cases that upgrade materials come more from searching around and exploring than killing anything. So that's probably a point in its favour.


A step more complex but still reasonable, intuitive, and world-building-y even, are Etrian Odyssey and Monster Hunter. Both boil down to kill stuff, make stuff with their bones and scales and brainstems. All your everything is made from monster guts. The economy is monster guts. What I really like about both those series is they encourage you to try different techniques in order to get drops, and the item names usually hint at what you should do. Like, in EO, a Rabbit's Ear probably needs you to Bind its head before killing it, or Scorched Bark needs you to ignite a tree monster on fire, or a Glacier Core requires you to NOT use fire on the ultra-fire-weak ice slime. Getting to meet those requirements may need a party change. Because gear is bought, not upgraded, it's not a big deal if you simply can't meet any one given requirement; at worst, you'll be going into the next boss with the second-best armour and weaponry.

Conversely, for MH, if it's a Rajang Horn, then aim your attacks on his stupid jackass face, or to net a Rathian Tail, you focus on her poisonous tail. You're not going to be cutting tails with Maces, hitting high faces without a Bow, or making precision attacks with Dual Blades. However, nothing in MH is ever really a guarantee; at worst, you'll need to double-break a part to even have a chance at the corresponding drop. At best, doing so will triple your odds of getting it. At really worst, a particular weapon path is rendered obsolete because it needs two Rathalos Rubies and those have like a 2% rate at the best of time and I'm not putting in THAT much effort. Even this isn't a big deal because there's several dozen options for each weapon type.


Lastly, the worst I've experienced is the Witcher 3. At least, worst that I can remember off the top of my head. First you need to get blueprints in the first place, and then make sure you're on the right step of the process, and you didn't skip over superior or greater or superb or anything. Most of the stuff'll be garbage easily enough obtained, like leather straps or iron ingots or even magic space metal isn't too bad. It's whenever you need herbs, or more probably one of those special ingredients that only YOU can make like albedo or aliecrudicinum or whatever the hell, which in turn to make them need herbs. Also they'll need their own blueprint as well. You warp to Novigrad and check the three or so herb shops in town. Nothing. Warp to Oxford and load for five minutes, 'nother six to find the shop, 'nother three of waiting for the shop to open 'cuz it's night. They don't have it. Load to Skellige and lo and behold, turns out it's only sold by an innkeeper or something stupid like that. Repeat process about thrice more to make the given weapon/armour/bomb/potion actually usable.


Not super closely related to any particular point, but I get rather irked when you just FIND stuff that's as good or better than stuff you can craft/buy. Like, why did I bother to upgrade this bardiche when you literally throw two of them pre-upgraded to +7 at me? Or, what's the point of buying anything in town when I find a sword better than the best in town on literally the dungeon's first floor?

Uuuuhhh, anyway, to the original question at hand, anything readable that makes it feel like I'm having any kind of meaningful input is great. Turning a greatsword Raw so a skinny little mage has a decent physical weapon is great. Just buying equipment from a shop that has enough variability to meet my specific needs is great. Farming old bosses to have multiple different types of useful weapons is pretty okay. Not shopping because I'll find something better in the dungeon is not great. And having to make sure my lance isn't destined to one day become a gigantic cob of corn is seriously actually quite horrible.