As someone currently developing a game in those “infant” stages I can say that it is very disheartening to see my game that I spent months making getting huge amounts of dislikes. It looks like a joke, or worse, a scam.
I don’t want to reset my ratings, but I’d like a way to only show recent ratings. That way, once those infant bugs are fixed my game doesn’t look like trash.
You should only open a game for early access if you’re prepared for dislikes, most players love to judge unfinished products and aren’t inclined to change their mind even after major improvements are made. You could also host the alpha-beta versions in a temporary place and then move the final version to a new one. I’m not sure I support either of those ideas.
I think it’d be optimal to have both recent and overall (like Steam), however failing that, just having recent ratings sounds good.
Old ratings are for old versions of the game, when the game was worse (or better) compared to the current version. The only issue I see is that the ratings of a game would be easier to bot (in the short-term) however that won’t be permanent since the rating will be constantly updating, so a single attack won’t last long.
Yeah recent ratings have both pros/cons when taking into account bots.
Con - Bots could temporarily shoot ratings way up (less ratings = more vulnerable to change)
Pro - Like you said, a bot spam won’t leave a permanent mark on the ratings
Either way, Roblox should implement something that can detect sudden surges in likes or dislikes and notify moderators.
Ratings are important for having long term accumulation, only popularity works with recent activity - in this case, plays per period of time. A recent ratings system simply doesn’t sound feasible on a technical level, a game can easily be judged for a new update (and whether it have great or awful reception) instead of as a game overall. The problem you’re experiencing is caused by early-access negative ratings which can be avoided by using a temporary place or avoiding public testing altogether, so I don’t see a necessity for dramatically changing how ratings work.
I totally agree. Real devs work hard to make games these days.