Abyssal Pixels: Performance Ratings And Why They Are Bad

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If you’re at all interested in Japanese games then the concept of performance ratings should be familiar to you. You play a mission and then you get a score based on your performance. Usually in an alphabetic fashion with S often being the highest rank you can obtain. Many of you have probably experienced it rather recently with Metal Gear Solid V which rewards players with a rating after every main mission. This score hinges on how well you did the stealth or how quickly you did the mission. There are also many variables that account for the score and sometimes I thought I completely cocked up a mission and magically got an S score at the end anyway.

This performance rating mechanic is central in a lot of games. The most prominent one is the Devil May Cry series which utilises the mechanic during every mission. You’ve had to do some flashy moves and blits through a level if you hoped to get an S rank or the coveted SSS ranks that some of the games had. For the layman, these were close to impossible, but the ones obsessed loved this sort of challenge.

But here’s the thing about performance ratings: I fucking hate them.

Quite the bold statement so let me unpack a little. Firstly, these ratings are more often than not optional and don’t really affect the overall game as they basically serve to gauge a player’s skill. However, they still pop up after every mission and you have no way of avoiding that. The effect of this can sometimes be drastic. Nothing related to gameplay, but psychologically. When I go through a level, thinking I’ve destroyed it only to get a C rank afterwards, I feel pretty disappointed. The rush that I got from being satisfied with myself was immediately diminished upon witnessing the screen.

Ratings often have arbitrary means of obtaining the highest rank. You need to destroy this much of X collectible or not harm person B etc. etc. Those may seem like side objectives, but for me, they’re limiting how I want to play the game. And that’s the crux of my point: it limits how you want to play. You have one of two choices: play the game how you like and get crappy scores or bore yourself unnecessarily to get some random rank.

Now, you can tell me that ranks serve no purpose in the greater scheme of things. It’s just there for completionists to test their skills. If so, why should the ranks be there when I finish a level for the first time? Obviously I don’t know the optimal route so my rank is going to be donkey dick. They make me feel like a worse gamer, especially when you get D or E ranks, and causes me to lose motivation to play the game further.

There are also inherent problems with having ranking systems. What should be used when determining which rank a player gets? Is time a factor? Do we offer rewards for being creative? So on and so forth. Usually what an orthodox ranking system boils down to is the time, combo meter, enemies killed, side objectives complete and so on. It’s so binary in its execution that I feel it severely limits what a player can do.

I’ll demonstrate with an example. In MGS V, the optimal way to get an S rank is to do it in full stealth, no kills, as quickly as possible, without getting spotted and doing a number of hidden side-objectives. Quite the tall order for a damn S rank. Most of the time, your only option is to knock everyone out, do the objective and get out. No creative uses of gadgets, or taking risks because if even one guy spots you at an inopportune time, it’s a restart. You also have to bum rush through the level, which isn’t that great if you want to enjoy the narrative and also scope out a place a bit. My main missions consist of of me, a tranquilizer gun, and a bunch of balloons, moving slowly to the objective and being afraid of everything because otherwise I need to restart ,which also affects the rank. It gets pretty boring pretty quickly. I could ignore the ranking, but this completionist mind of mine refused to settle for such low ranks.

However, side-ops don’t have ranking systems. This is my place to go absolutely wild with my imagination. I can safely kill anyone I want and if a route proves to be risky, so be it. If someone spots me, well time for a little shooting action. I can attempt to snipe an entire outpost from a rock or drive a truck loaded with C4 into a bunch of bastards. The world was my oyster. As long as I got the job done, anything goes, and it makes for a magical experience.

I’ve heard reports of people saying they’re not enjoying the game as much because they keep trying for S ranks, failing and have to restart missions all of the time. It really puts a damper on the experience when it’s part of the main story. The easiest suggestion I can give is to make the rankings separate from the core experience so that it can be attempted by the diehards or anyone that cares or simply make the option to switch them off.

It’s tough arguing that something is “bad” when it’s not technically hurting you in any way and only encourages you to git gud. But it does have an effect on your experience when you think you’ve done sometime quite well and then seeing you got a B rank for no real reason. Or thinking you absolutely nailed a rank and then seeing you got an A rank because you accidentally threw some guy off a bridge. If I had my way, rankings wouldn’t be a thing. We can just play how we like and enjoy it, as it should be.

Of course, there are some that will defend performance ranks with them making more content, giving the game longevity and replayability, be a platform for the best of the best to show off their skills etc. And I can see that. That’s why I’m so torn with this subject. It’s not completely harmful, yet it has a negative impact on my experiences.

I think the inherent problem of rankings is that they are binary. You have to do this, this and this, otherwise your score will be bad. You also can’t do this and this. But what if I did something creatively, but accidentally killed a couple of guys in the process? That will affect your rank, sorry. Ranks don’t account for human creativity and only looks for certain aspects.

So, a pretty polarizing argument. Ranks have their merits, but they are also hugely flawed. What do you think of ranks and what are your feelings towards them?

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