How do you rate your VNs?

[MaggieROBOT]

I was curious about this for a while, but how do you guys rate your VNs (in VNDB, in mental notes, etc?)? Do you like to give it a numerical value or just "this one is good" or "this one is bad"? Do you use decimals in VNDB scores? Do you rate things you dropped?

Edited March 20, 2018 by MaggieROBOT

[VirginSmasher]

I rate VNs based on 80% enjoyment and 20% critical. The thing is that critical problems tend to affect my enjoyment while reading, so I don't really know how to define that balance.

[onorub]

Rankings > Numbers for me, so i score my VNs in a way that's closest to my actual rankings. I'd use two decimals in VNDB if i could. One main route is enough for me to score a VN, but i'm revising my scores all the time so i can easily change it as i play more.

Edited March 20, 2018 by onorub

[Acrylic7]

For me,

10 = great story, great character, great music, GREAT ending, leave long lasting impression

9 = great story, great character, good music, GOOD ending

8 = good story, good character, good music, good ending

7 = ordinary story, ordinary character, ordinary music, ordinary ending

1 - 6 = Not recommended.

 

Of course, I also have soft spot and bias for certain things. Sometimes certain things weighed heavier than others.

[Thomas]

9 minutes ago, onorub said:

Rankings > Numbers for me, so i score my VNs in a way that's closest to my actual rankings. I'd use two decimals in VNDB if i could.

This!

I rate in numbers too and I don't rate dropped VNs

I use the same system as Acrylic above me for rating

 

Edited March 20, 2018 by Thomas

[NowItsAngeTime]

I just say Fuck Objectivity and rate things how much I enjoy them and less on "technical" things that don't matter to me or 'objective' things people find wrong (like 'plot holes') that don't effect my enjoyment in any way

Scoring system for me is something like

10 - All Time Fav

9- Really Good with little flaws

8- Quite Enjoyed it with some flaws

7- Decent but a whole bunch of things prevented me from really liking it

6-Alright, Managed to get through but lots of things definitely could've been better

5- Meh. I likely forced myself to finish it, I got bored of it, or I liked it at first then became bad but not bad enough to be a 4 or below.

4 and below - Varying degrees I didn't enjoy it

[bakauchuujin]

I rate it mostly on how enjoyable it is to read, but I also do take the quality of the work into consideration. In terms of voting, I use decimals, but only .5. So for instance something like 7.5 or 6.5. I feel like just having full numbers might be a bit too limiting on my views of a VN, but that having all decimals just makes it too difficult to really figure out the exact score I should give.

Edited March 20, 2018 by bakauchuujin

[DarkZedge]

Based mostly on my enjoyment of said Visual Novel of course if all the attributes are good it makes it more likely that I'll enjoy it but that being said I have enjoyed some that people call bad or just alright.

[MaggieROBOT]

Due to technical problems, I didn't write my own answer

4 minutes ago, NowItsAngeTime said:

I just say Fuck Objectivity and rate things how much I enjoy them and less on "technical" things that don't matter to me or 'objective' things people find wrong (like 'plot holes') that don't effect my enjoyment in any way

Scoring system for me is something like

10 - All Time Fav

9- Really Good with little flaws

8- Quite Enjoyed it with some flaws

7- Decent but a whole bunch of things prevented me from really liking it

6-Alright, Managed to get through but lots of things definitely could've been better

5- Meh. I likely forced myself to finish it, I got bored of it, or I liked it at first then became bad but not bad enough to be a 4 or below.

4 and below - Varying degrees I didn't enjoy it

Mine is very similar to this, except I never rate anything a 10 (nothing is perfect), and I never read anything that was 5 or lower because I don't even bother with things I know all too well I will not enjoy.

[Dreamysyu]

Basically, it's like this:

10 - my absolute favorite. It might have some not very serious flaws, but it's still good overall. And the key reason for giving something a 10 is always my enjoyment.

9 - excellent work. No flaws that I consider serious, I enjoyed it overall.

8 - either 9 with some serious flaws (for example, Grisaia, Ever17), or a 7 which I enjoyed very much for some subjective reason.

7 - simply good, nothing outstanding.

6 - two possibilities: it's either just above average (Grisaia and Umineko fandiscs), or something that I understand is good overall, but it had so many gamebreaking flaws for me so I simply couldn't enjoy it.

5 - absolute average. Somewhat equal amount of good and bad points.

1-4 - different levels of trash.

I only rate VNs when I drop them if I'm absolutely sure that I'm never going to continue reading them. And I don't use decimals. Seriously, I don't understand how it's possible to differentiate between 8.7 and 8.8. I used half-integers at some point, but I decided to drop them.

Also, I often revise my ratings. I try to make it so the histogram of my votes looks similar to a bell curve with an average at 7.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Dreamysyu

[MaggieROBOT]

1 minute ago, Dreamysyu said:

And I don't use decimals. Seriously, I don't understand how it's possible to differentiate between 8.7 and 8.8. I used half-integers at some point, but I decided to drop them.

I can't like anything more today, but I fully agree with this.

[Thomas]

8 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

And I don't use decimals. Seriously, I don't understand how it's possible to differentiate between 8.7 and 8.8. I used half-integers at some point, but I decided to drop them.

 

6 minutes ago, MaggieROBOT said:

I can't like anything more today, but I fully agree with this.

Yeah I totally agree with that too

[VirginSmasher]

16 minutes ago, MaggieROBOT said:

Mine is very similar to this, except I never rate anything a 10 (nothing is perfect), and I never read anything that was 5 or lower because I don't even bother with things I know all too well I will not enjoy.

Exactly. Himawari is my favourite VN of all time and yet, it truly isn't perfect. I doubt anything will get a 10 from me ever.

[NowItsAngeTime]

16 minutes ago, MaggieROBOT said:

Due to technical problems, I didn't write my own answer

Mine is very similar to this, except I never rate anything a 10 (nothing is perfect), and I never read anything that was 5 or lower because I don't even bother with things I know all too well I will not enjoy.

See I think perfection is an objective thing which is why I say fuck it. 

I dont give many 10s but I had to enjoy something so much it either had to have almost no flaws that mattered to me or the VN was so good the flaws didnt matter anyway

[kokoro]

My vote = +1 to moogy's vote.

[Dreamysyu]

4 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

Exactly. Himawari is my favourite VN of all time and yet, it truly isn't perfect. I doubt anything will get a 10 from me ever.

I use 10s, but I don't consider it a perfect rating. Basically, if I theoretically find something that's even better than the VNs I rated with 10 so far, I will give it a 10 and lower the votes for the other VNs.

[Zidan209]

I tend to rate based on enjoyment. Also, my scores are usually biased, depending on how much i liked the soundtrack 

[1P1A]

I have a shitty memory, so basically, if I'm able to recall the story at all, I obviously enjoyed it. I don't have a ranking system, really.

[ChaosRaven]

59 minutes ago, Acrylic7 said:

For me,

10 = great story, great character, great music, GREAT ending, leave long lasting impression

9 = great story, great character, good music, GOOD ending

8 = good story, good character, good music, good ending

7 = ordinary story, ordinary character, ordinary music, ordinary ending

1 - 6 = Not recommended.

I also tend to rate like this, even though I consider Dreamysyu's rating system superior. His system makes better use of the full range and 5 is the average like it is supposed to be. But in your and my system the average is closer to 7. Unfortunately, I got used to it and I don't want to re-rate all my VN's on VNDB again, so I'll just stick to it. The highest grade I've ever given is a 9 though.

38 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

And I don't use decimals. Seriously, I don't understand how it's possible to differentiate between 8.7 and 8.8. I used half-integers at some point, but I decided to drop them.

Usually there are two cases when this can happen:

1.) Some people rate individual routes and then calculate the final rating with Excel (Seriously!)

2.) People tend to compare titles with other titles they've played and if it's better than a title that got a 6, but worse than a title that got a 7, it's just natural to give it a ranking inbetween. Personally, I only use half-integers though.

Edited March 20, 2018 by ChaosRaven

[bakauchuujin]

16 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

I also tend to rate like this, even though I consider Dreamysyu's rating system superior. His system makes better use of the full range and 5 is the average like it is supposed to be.

A problem with using 5 as an average is that what one choose to read is generally biased towards good VNs. Mostly what people search for are good things or popular things, those tend to be above the average. Therefore people for the most part end up getting an average around 7 as the things they read generally are better than the average of what is made.

Also in fiction there is nothing that can be called perfection, but 10/10 does not mean something is perfect rather that it will make you feel it is freaking amazing or a masterpiece. 

Edited March 20, 2018 by bakauchuujin

[Plk_Lesiak]

I pretty much follow the same system as @Dreamysyu, but with a bit more stress on my personal enjoyment than any "objective" measures. I try to be more impartial when scoring games in my reviews on the blog, but VNDB is very much about my subjective feelings. Also, 10 is, or rather will be used for games that absolutely mesmerised me - obviously a perfect VN can't exist, so there's no reason to keep that space empty forever in waiting for such game.

I also didn't use decimals much, but I think I will start implementing 0.5 ones more often, to keep the list more accurate.

[Ranzo]

Okay so here are mine

10/10  It was damn near perfect and it did something that really effected me. Whatever flaws it has I can easily look over. 

9/10  Still a near perfect game but it either had one flaw that was noticeable enough for me to not feel it deserved a 10 or it didn't effect me enough.

8/10  It was a very good game and I completely enjoyed my time with it.

7/10 It was good but it had one two many flaws or things that I just didn't like about it.

6/10 It was just decent and generally pretty forgettable.

5/10 Not very good at all but it had something that it did well.

4/10 Pretty bad but far from being terrible. The sex was alright?

3 to 1 Games that I found to be pretty abhorrent but still played through anyway.

[ChaosRaven]

18 minutes ago, bakauchuujin said:

A problem with using 5 as an average is that what one choose to read is generally biased towards good VNs. Mostly what people search for are good things or popular things, those tend to be above the average. Therefore people for the most part end up getting an average around 7 as the things they read generally are better than the average of what is made.

Also in fiction there is nothing that can be called perfection, but 10/10 does not mean something is perfect rather that it will make you feel it is freaking amazing or a masterpiece. 

I'm aware of that, but most stuff I read and kinda liked somehow ends up in a very narrow region between 7 and 8, which makes it hard to really differentiate between them. 

[Silvz]

I rate them solely according my enjoyment. That said, I do not enjoy bad stuff. Whenever I feel a VN is not well writter or optimized (cof untranslated lines), I simply drop them. So, for me to stick with a VN until the end, it has to be at least a 7 on my enjoyment scale.

[tymmur]

47 minutes ago, kokoro said:

My vote = +1 to moogy's vote.

It's likely not a good idea to base your votes on somebody who managed to get banned on VNDB for his point of view on VNs and his attitude towards people who disagrees with him.