@TriforceBun

Pretty sure I know what you're talking about. I got that spoiled on Twitter when a gaming website decided to post a guide about that area, along with a spoilerific picture. This was on launch day too. No idea what the hell these people are thinking when they pull off stuff like this.

@VofEscaflowne
Sorry to hear that. As for why, it's simple--everyone's competing for hits. And unfortunately, that means trying to get the most attention-grabbing headline, tweet or video thumbnail. It's really aggravating, and why I've been avoiding more corners of the internet the past week than usual.

Zero said:

Seems like you really like the game! Maybe you should change your score to reflect that!

Zero said:

Could you "joke score" people like... stop doing this every time a new big game comes out? It's kind of annoying because the scores are used for other parts of the site and it looks weird that our highest rated recent game is Golf Story, not Mario.

The highest rated recent game (3 ratings minimum) is Golf Story (Switch) with an average of 8.967. The highest rated all-time game (20 ratings minimum) is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch) with an average of 9.777.

I didn't see that earlier post.

And joke score people? I'm pretty sure this is the first joke score I've done. And does the score I give the game really matter when I've contributed to the discussion in a more meaningful and nuanced way than a score can? I know the average score is on the front page of the site, but does that really matter?

@TriforceBun

So much for hits cause I unfollowed them and suggested others block them for their crap.

@Hero_Of_Hyrule

It probably matters more than people giving games a joke score I would imagine.

@VofEscaflowne

Does it though? Do people care whether or not Mario Odyssey is on the front page? Does that really make a difference? I see the score as a fun little feature for people to enjoy. Rate games how you wish and have fun with it. And I doubt Mop it Up or Pokefreak would leave their scores at 0 long term.

So you know, I've removed my score before asking any of this. I'm sincerely asking, since I recall a lot of people on here saying that they don't care about scores. And when I brought up stuff like the EXP system, people were surprised that I was even paying attention. So I didn't think people took the metrics on this site that seriously.

@Hero_Of_Hyrule
I don't really have a strong opinion on this one way or the other, but I suppose it's a matter of what impression we give to people visiting the site. If potential members come over here and, say, want to share their love for the new Mario game and see that it's gotten negative scores and hasn't made a dent in the list of most popular games right now, then maybe they figure they'd rather discuss that somewhere else than here, when opinions are that polarized.

@Hero_Of_Hyrule People always say they don't care about scores, then people care about scores.

From my perspective, I put in like a ton more work than you guys probably realize to get this whole user created game database / rating / etc. system up and running. Probably months. It's a feature that not many sites, especially smaller ones, have. Every time there is a new game discussion page on the forum (which is a public discussion), or a review goes live (obviously public), the user scores are linked to those pages, and displayed prominently near the top because part of the philosophy here was always that users have a voice and "reviewers" are not some special group of people placed high above the average forum user. It's also used on the front page in the aforementioned way, and our top 10 game lists and maybe even other places I'm not currently thinking of. This took a lot of custom coding to get working nicely!

Now, I've always felt that THEORETICALLY user scores are a great idea but IN PRACTICE they rarely work out well, especially with high profile Nintendo games, because of console wars and "Nintendo is too kiddie" and this and that you just end up with a bunch of people giving 0s to games they haven't played / have barely played and such. Like this one on Metacritic:

javironcho Oct 28, 2017
0
This is more of the same, this is really just a glorified mobile phone game with nothing interesting, maybe its ok for kids though.
I really dont recomend wasting 60 dollars on this, wait until its like 20, since it is really short and easy, i just returned it to the store and got the fractured but whole instead

But as a site for Nintendo fans without too many trolls and such we've managed to mostly avoid that and actually have user scores that have some meaning!

Of course, when you make a system for a large group of users people will screw around with it regardless, and maybe there is no way around that, and I don't want to get in the habit of trying to police scores (which would also involve trying to figure out what is and isn't a joke score, and that's sort of an impossible task) or tell users how they should use the various features here, but the low scores I saw are all regulars on the forum who are nice people so I figured I'd see if I could get these people on board with my point of view.

It's probably not a huge deal but it's sort of a pet project of mine that I've spent a lot of time on, and even though it was "finished" awhile ago I still tweak the (semi complicated) formula for the top 10 lists and such, trying to get a more accurate reflection of what games are and aren't loved here. So it feels weird when an obviously highly loved game like Super Mario Odyssey isn't even showing up on the Switch top 10 list nearly a week after it released because of all of these joke scores. I start to feel a little bit like why bother spending time and energy to make nice things if people are just going to mess around with them.

Which, you know, as a teacher I get a lot of at my day job already!

@VofEscaflowne

You saw my dissertation to Nintendo Life yesterday after he was complaining his fans had been complaining. It's not hard for people to put spoilerish stuff behind a simple blockade. A link or a banner or whatever. Completely unnecessary to blast all that stuff in everyone's unassuming faces.

@Hero_Of_Hyrule

I am someone who values our metrics. To me I find enjoyment and find it interesting to see what we as a collective feel about games and franchises through these metrics. When new users come I like the idea they can legitimately contribute to those. When joke scores are applied, it pretty much negates any past and future metrics because they'll always be in competition with something that's a lie.

@DrFinkelstein
So far I've been really lucky with not getting anything spoiled for Odyssey (and so far there has been some crazy stuff that I didn't see coming!) beyond already knowing about the Kingdoms that Nintendo themselves kept showing at events.

I did see a major spoiler for Wolfenstein 2 on youtube though, it was a channel in my feed that posted a massive spoiler in a thumbnail, I couldn't believe it, so pissed! Unsubscribed from that channel! I'm not sure why the author thought it was okay... I guess no one gives a shit anymore and it's a total free for all. I'm starting to think it's just really old folks like me who want to experience the games for themselves, maybe it's the younger generation who is fine with seeing all the content of a game on social media etc. on day one.

So I had a pretty good session yesterday, though first I did the Lost Kingdom which didn't really click with me, after that though New Donk oh man... everything about this has been awesome so far. Definitely the best kingdom yet.

I'm definitely noticing that I greatly prefer the kingdoms with meaty main quest stuff. Like the Lost Kingdom didn't really have much meaty stuff, it was mostly just a bunch of running around spotting something and getting it within a minute or so. But the New Donk kingdom has some really meaty main quests! And just exploring that place is pretty fun too.

@Zero

Oh, I LOVED the Lost Kingdom! I thought that was one of the "meatiest" part of the game. I have not experienced joy in a video game like I did when I captured that kingdom's main enemy.

@Secret_Tunnel
I'm not quite as enthusiastic about it, but I loved that capture too! Also really like the looks of that kingdom. The colour and the textures of the plant life is pretty, I think.

@Secret_Tunnel The kingdom's... main enemy? Is this something that will happen later?

Well, I'm right up against the endgame now! I think I'll introduce Bowser's butt to my boot sometime tonight. The big guy has been a major jerk this time around, but it sure made for an awesome adventure. The excitement definitely doesn't slow down in the back half either.

@Zero
I think he's simply referring to the Tropical Wigglers and their accordion-like gameplay.

Oh.

Yeah I dunno it just sort of felt like there wasn't much substantial in that area. It's fairly small and pretty much every moon I found was like... hey there is a moon (less than a minute later) hey I have the moon. Probably a lot I missed but there didn't seem to be many meaty parts there and everything was pretty easy.

Taking control of that enemy is cool though.

There are a couple fun moons you can find with those guys. I liked that area.

Are there moons that you can only get by scanning an Amiibo, or am I missing something?

I'm talking about the steam gardener robot standing to the left of the shops in Wooded Kingdom. There appears to be a marker there indicating a moon. When you talk to him you're prompted to scan an Amiibo, but since I don't have one of the Odyssey figures I scanned Chibi-Robo, and only got a few coins. If Nintendo's put in a moon -- even if it's just one out of hundreds -- that you have to buy an Amiibo to get, they can fuck off a little bit. Just a little bit since you can buy moons. But still.

Maybe I'm just confusing that marker with some other thing though. That's happened before.

@r_hjort
No moons are attached to amiibo, so keep looking for that one!

@ploot
That's good to hear! I'll be going back in to look soon. Got a bit sidetracked by just looking around and spotting something in the distance that I hadn't seen before. That happens a lot in this game.

As far as the moons go, to me, it's the gameplay that is the reward, not the trinket. Therefore, I don't care that the "reward" for an easy task and a challenging task can be the same, as I'm not in it for the moon, I'm in it for the fun. But I know we live in such an achievement-driven culture, so I can see why people might be disappointed in that. I'm more of a "it's about the journey, not the destination" type.