Topic: The Trophy Discussion Thread

@JohnnyShoulder @colonelkilgore There does seem to be a generalized devaluation of other trophy types compared to the platinum, doesn't there? I guess that's what happens when Sony makes one trophy type more valuable than the others to your cumulative score. Never bothered me, though: there are mindlessly easy platinums to achieve and brutally difficult gold and silver trophies. I attach value to the experience itself, not the digital trinket.

I don't dislike the game (I usually just stop playing games I dislike), but I can't say beating my head against the same rock for so many months was particularly fun, either. To be honest, I feel less of a sense of achievement than one of relief, but, all the same, there is a small part of me that will miss the grind.

The one really crucial factor is that it was on the Vita, though. Having that console sitting close by, ready to pick up for one more go while I was doing something else, was the only reason I didn't abandon my quest long ago. It's a pity remote play doesn't work well for me. If I could play the PS4 version of Rayman Legends on my Vita, I'd likely already have that one horrible trophy that requires grinding the special challenges for months to boost your level of awesomeness.

@Ralizah A fair way of looking at it... to be honest whatever way any one person chooses to look at it is perfectly fair in my book as it is simply an adjunct to playing the games themselves. I tend to play the games I want to... but to go for the plats on those games, never really played a game as it would mean getting an easy/quick plat (though 1 or 2 of mine would be considered ‘those’ kinds of plats).

I do tend to ‘value’ the memories more of the ones that took some genuine skill or graft though.

@colonelkilgore That's the way to do it. Trophies should reflect the fun you've had and challenges you've overcome when engaging with the medium, like a digital scrapbook of sorts. I can't imagine being one of those people who "collects" platinums and regularly plays complete dreck as a result. Although I do think it's hilarious that a minor cottage industry has developed for games that people buy for easy plats.

@Ralizah oh I’ve started ‘collecting’ plats... but only plats that I want. And the grange thing is since starting to hunt down plats I am enjoying my gaming more than ever. I think I’ve mentioned it before but I think I would previously kinda play games in my own personal comfort-zone (not necessarily a difficulty level thing... more of a gameplay-style choice). Plat hunting has pushed me out of my comfort-zone, forcing me to at least temporarily (until the trophy pops that is) play in differing manners.

It’s definitely a very personal thing though, most of my mates who are gamers just can’t take the ‘pressure’ of that kind of goal-setting when partaking in a leisure activity... works for me though.

@colonelkilgore ...right, but "plats that you want" are for games you basically enjoy and would want to play anyway, right? Would you buy and play a worthless game that is only designed to give players easy access to its platinum trophy? Because that's a thing, and I don't understand it.

But yeah, when designed well, trophies can push you to fully experience a game. I'm not sure I would have played something like Detroit: Become Human as many times as I did if I wasn't going for trophies. I didn't end up getting the platinum for that (yet), but I can absolutely say it led to me appreciating the game design more, even if playing it over and over got a bit tedious.

@Ralizah exactly that, I only try and plat games I want to play as the game appeals to my wants... ie I bought The Evil Within 1 & 2 yesterday both of which are considered difficult Platinums to obtain. I also have the Metal Gear Solid games on the docket for this year and the Devil May Cry series planned for the year after. All of those are considered difficult plats also. That’s not to say either that I only go for difficult platinums exclusively... these are games which I just really want to play.

@Ralizah @colonelkilgore I don't think that i have or will ever play a game just to get a platinum. All my platinum trophies are either games you get by completing the story, like the Telltale Games, or when I gave finished the story/campaign there are only a few obtainable trophies left. If there are any that i feel are obnoxious (replaying the game on a harder difficulty for instance), I move on. God of War and Ghost of Tsushima I could have played for a lot longer. Assassin's Creed Origins I tried to mop the last few trophies, but could feel my enjoyment of the game begin to fall away. I just don't feel it is worth it.

@JohnnyShoulder totally fair bud... and I used to see things exactly the same way. I only went after my first Platinum on Bloodborne as I loved the game so much and when I was discussing it with a mate, he asked if I was gonna ‘go for the plat’. Going for a plat had never even occurred to me before but I thought what the hell, the game was gonna be over shortly and I really wanted to keep playing it so I did.

I had no real intention of going for any others but bit by bit I’ve gone from ‘trophies not figuring in my gaming at all’ to ‘I’ll just Plat Bloodborne’ to ‘If when playing a game, I just really like it I’ll try for the plat’ to ‘I’ll try and plat things I play that only require one playthru and no hard playthru’ to ‘I’ll try and plat every game on the docket’. And in fairness, I’ve gained more and more enjoyment from gaming as I’ve ‘gone through the gears’ as it were.

@colonelkilgore In your 5 year plan (😉) do you placehold games based on their trophies — in other words, specifically intermix more achievable platinums alternating with the harder platinums? If memory serves, it seems like you have difficult platinums stacked back-to-back often. I’m just curious.

For me, I’m similar to @JohnnyShoulder in that my 27 platinums are a lot of easy ones that I just enjoy playing, like the Telltale games, or games where in my natural flow of playing and enjoying it to death I get close so I just push through the last few trophies (GoW, Spider-Man, GoT, Hellblade, etc). However, I do get a little dopamine rush with each trophy, and it seems to correlate with the type of trophy — gold and platinums giving me the biggest rush. So if I’ve played a game that just doesn’t hand out many trophies very easily, I’ll often intersperse another game with easier trophies between game sessions or at least after I complete the harder game.
That and most long games give a handful of trophies at the opening few hours, then you hit a long stretch without hearing a trophy pop, then at the end you get a load of trophies popping quickly in the closing hours. So after I finish a game, I usually have had a pretty good trophy “fix” but it’s the middle where I started to get one eye twitching and go through withdrawals. 😜 So sometimes I just take a little break from the middle of a huge epic and pop a few trophies on a smaller game, as a release.

The psychology of trophy hunting deserves its own chapter in abnormal human behavior 😂. I sound like an addict!

@Th3solution 🤣 I agree about that last sentence, I’m fascinated how trophy hunting has gripped a hold of my (& that of others) psyche... i’ve always been someone who likes a ‘project’ though and I guess that each game I take on now becomes a project as opposed to ‘just’ entertainment.

About my now infamous long-term plan/calendar... I do try to mix things up from one game to the next (& to the next etc). Mostly in terms of genre but also in terms of game length. I don’t tend to play 100+ hour games back to back... and in the same way I wouldn’t play like 20 hours-and-under games back to back neither. I would play multiple ‘average-length’ games on the bounce though, so like games in the 40-60 hour range.

But still, at any time and without warning a game comes up that just has to be played as soon as the current games’ plat is popped. Also, ‘some’ games I save specifically for when I have time off as I just wanna ‘live’ the experience 11/12 hours a day without work getting in the way.

I got the platinum in Danganronpa 1/2 Reload. It took forever and if I'd known what a slog it was going to be before I'd started I wouldn't have bothered.

@johncalmc so just out of interest (as I recently bought the trilogy) how many hours(ish) are we talking?

@colonelkilgore I think that they're probably about 40 hours each. Don't know about the third one as I haven't done that one yet. The games are probably... I don't know... like twenty hours each, and there's probably twenty hours of nonsense after to get the platinum. The second game has slightly more nonsense to contend with. The games themselves are really good but I wasn't anticipating how much boring grindy stuff would be involved in getting the platinum.

@johncalmc fair, 40 hours ain't 'too' bad though... you gonna take a break from the series before starting the 3rd?

@colonelkilgore As someone who platinum’d the first Danganronpa game but not the second, I can attest that the first game wasn’t too bad, but yes, there was post game grinding aplenty. I found the mini game you have to play at the end (in order to max out all the character relationships) to be fairly entertaining in its own right. The post-game content is sort of like a mobile phone game, if I can compare it to anything, with some simplistic game design and graphics. If you’ve become attached to the characters then it’s a nice way to hang out with them a little longer.
But the second game ups the requirements a little more post game, and I didn’t have it in me to devote the extra 20-30 hours or so. Now the third game... supposedly it’s the longest platinum of all (est. 80 hrs or so) Likewise, I didn’t even try, but it’s like the others — it’s not a matter of difficulty, it’s just time consuming.

@colonelkilgore @Th3solution I think I would have felt less irritated by the grind if I'd done the platinum on the Vita version for the two games individually. But when you platinum the Reload version on PS4 you basically have to do everything you did to platinum 1 and everything you did to platinum 2 all in one go and then you get one platinum for it.

I'm already playing the third one now which I've never actually played before. I don't think I'm going to worry about trophies on this one though. PSNprofiles has it listed as a 100 hour platinum.

@johncalmc Ah, I didn’t realize they unified the two games into one platinum on the PS4 version. Yeah, I can see how it would be uber grindey doing both.

@Th3solution Yeah I have them both on Vita too but I wanted to play on PS4 so I did them together. I have to say it annoys me when they bundle games together but give it all one trophy list.

@Th3solution @johncalmc so they merged the trophy lists of 1 & 2 on PS4 eh... disappointing. I bought the trilogy collection and was hoping I'd earn 3 plats out of it... it does make it a less enticing proposition within the backlog in that case.

@colonelkilgore Yeah. On Vita the games were released individually so you get a platinum for each one, but on the PS4 port the first two games were bundled together as Danganronpa 1/2 Reload, and that package has one platinum. Then Danganronpa 3 has its own too.