Steam Reviews - No Longer Displaying Negative Helpful Reviews??

[Chill]

This is the first time I've ever posted on a forum like this here on Steam but I was so shocked I felt like I needed to.

I'm a huge fan of the Total War games but I wasn't sure about buying Thrones of Britannia. I checked out the reviews and noticed, even after selecting "Most Helpful", I can't find reviews with hundreds of up votes. Why is this?

Well, I think Steam is starting to "hide" the honest, most helpful "negative" reviews. I really hope they read this and seriously consider reversing their decision on this.

I feel mislead now. I had to dig deep down in the reviews to find the reviews that are truly the "most helpful" and everyone else agrees too since they have hundreds of upvotes on these reviews that are now hidden.

Also for those who think I didn't select the correct criteria, I made sure I did. I sorted by every single option I could and still had to do some serious digging to find what I was looking for.

I'm not sure who to blame here but I was even going to purchase Thrones of Britannia despite the negative reviews but no longer wish to after discovering they are, in a way, censoring the most helpful reviews.

[Chill]

Ok, so it looks like they just drastically changed the way in which you can view the most helpful negative reviews... Even when manually selecting the date range, if I had over two years selected, it eventually stopped showing the earlier reviews altogether. Even when it was within the selected range.

Just something I feel like people should be aware of! I'm glad I figured it out before I made a purchase I would regret. I'm also glad I figured it out since I would have been furious at Steam for hiding what I believe to be the most important reviews for the game. Just because they are "old" doesn't mean they shouldn't show up in my review selection when the date range covers every single review ever written on the game.

Steam, you're going to make me buy less games since I feel like you are tricking your community and I will spend even more time pondering my purchases.

[Ogami]

They do not "hide"anything. They cycle reviews so that newer ones replace older ones on the store page over time.
The reason is simple, if they would only show the most helpful and most upvoted reviews those would all be from the time the game initially launched because those had the most time to accumulate votes.
So, to prevent that from happening and giving new players even years later a reason to write reviews for the game they cycle older reviews to the back and newer ones to the front of the store page.

Also, games change, many games get patches and updates and a review that is a few years old and never was revised could give you a completely wrong picture of the game in its current state.

[Crazy Tiger]

If you filter a date range that includes the recent time, it'll bring the newer ones on top. Which isn't illogical. If I make a filter for negative reviews with a custom date range (for example 13 sep 2018 - 20 dec 2020) I see plenty of negative reviews with hundreds of up votes.

And if I check here, I see plenty of them as well: https://steamcommunity.com/app/712100/reviews/?browsefilter=toprated&snr=1_5_100010_

[Chill]

@Ogami Thanks for the first reply! I see you've been on Steam even longer than me. I've been on here for 6 years myself.

I've always over the years checked the reviews of a game by Most Helpful reviews of all time ie. since the game launched. But very recently, within the last year I'd say, this option has been nerfed. I can no longer do so.

I agree with you though that not everyone will want to see reviews as I do. But I still feel "cheated" since if a person manually drags his cursor to view "Most Helpful Reviews" from the date of launch (2018) to today (2021), it still should show those most helpful reviews. Instead, it hides them. I found them by scrolling through and reading dozens and dozens and dozens of reviews individually.

However, if I do only select the first two years of reviews, I am able to see what I am looking for. Those most upvoted reviews finally show.

You have to remember I've purchased 300 games on Steam and I've always gone in and read through the review sections. I've spent hours doing so. And I always enjoyed it immensely.

[󠀡󠀡]

I DONT BELIVE SO

[Chill]

I'd be skeptical too without proof. Here you are

https://postimg.cc/jWFKfWsT
Picture #1 here shows the date range selected as every single review. Now, notice the difference in picture #2.

https://postimg.cc/YLpHKQR1

Picture #2 has a limited date range from 2018 to like 2020. All of a sudden, those hidden reviews finally show up.

[Mita]

Actually it does display for me as example...

[Chill]

https://postimg.cc/V5gWRx5G

If I click the "Browse all 10,380 reviews" option at the very bottom, it does display them... I've always remained in the regular window and was able to see them all. But at least they have another page that shows them all!

[h]

I've noticed this since ages ago. Steam reviews are useless. Negative reviews with 100's of thumbs up never appear on the "most helpful" list unless you filter for negative reviews only. And even then, the ones with more thumbs up often don't appear first. The idea that they also take in consideration time of posting is convincing, but ultimately not true at least for the majority of cases. Older reviews with less thumbs up appear in front of newer reviews with more thumbs up all the time, I'm seeing it happening as I speak. Ogami's comment is deceiving, a lie. If I say "most helpful" of "all time", then I want most helpful of all time, in order of helpful score. If I wanted recent reviews, then I would have set it to a recent time frame.

[Yandy]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.