Topic: The Trophy Discussion Thread

I wonder if PS5 will modify the trophy system at all. I feel certain that one’s trophies and level will port over to PS5 in the same way PS3 trophies traveled over to PS4. This is a no-brainer for Sony, given people’s investment and desire to continue the metagame. However, I wonder if the trophy system will in any way change — such as maybe a more organized and standardized implementation that coincides with gaming time and effort.

I find myself playing some games because of the trophies and some games in spite of their trophies. For example, I’m really hitting a lull in my trophy achievements over the last 3-4 months because of playing some games with long and difficult trophy lists, like Red Dead Redemption 2. I can go hours and hours without hearing a trophy pop, although the game is still enjoyable. Yet on the other hand, I find myself tempted to replay or grind for some easier trophies in games I’ve completed already, just for the satisfaction of getting the little virtual trinkets. For example I’m considering doing another Oxenfree run for the platinum. Both situations are enjoyable to me — that is, playing a really excellent immersive game and hardly earning any trophies, and playing a decent or solid game but getting a huge trophy horde for my time. (I don’t play any bad games just for the trophies) But I feel like I need to have both kinds of game experiences in my rotation - games that give me trophies and games that are just games.

@KratosMD I’ve never owned an Xbox product and didn’t realize that the point based achievement system provided a gradation to the achievements. An interesting variance that makes sense.

@RogerRoger I hadn’t considered the effect any change to the system would do to the YouTubers who create trophy guides, the entire websites that are trophy guide based, the players who hire out trophy support, or the others who might literally make a living on the trophy system. I’ve watched some of the Maka guides or PowerPyx or whatever the thing is and I’m amazed at these guys, who not only can earn some of these tough trophies, but who can then create an organized and logical video (or text) that can help others earn it also. I hadn’t considered how the current system affects some people like that.
Wouldn’t you like the ability to delete games from your trophy list? I also use the trophy list as a sort of record of my (and other people’s) gaming history. It helps me keep track of where I’ve been, long after I sell back a game and/or delete it from my console. That part is good. But for those games you pop in and pretty much hate after a while and just move on, or that you have bad memories of, then you’re pretty much stuck with there, sticking out like a boil on your list, drawing attention to that one game where you have just 1% or 2% completion. — I realize that you can delete it up until it’s synced, I think, but after that, you’re destined to carry it like a scar the rest of your days. A scarlet letter to bear showing that you played 30 minutes of “Worst Game Ever ‘76: No Busby’s Sky.” 😂 I believe that there is certainly an issue of the cloud saving a record of your trophies and how they are electronically maintained for fidelity of the system that relies upon this inability to delete and the requirement for things to be permanently recorded. It does seem like they could provide a way to organize the game trophy list however. Maybe have the option to organize the games by completion percentage, by date of first trophy instead of last trophy, and even maybe manually so a person could put the his or her favorite games at the top of the list and all the garbage ones at the bottom.

@Th3solution

Wouldn’t you like the ability to delete games from your trophy list?

You can do this already on the PS4.

EDIT: although this may only be for games you have 0% for.

After 131 hours I got the platinum in Dragon Quest XI.

@RogerRoger I actually also err on the side of caution when I start up a game, similarly to how you describe your own approach. Some of my friends have oodles of games on their list with almost no completion because they play every single PS Plus title for a minute or rent and borrow games for the weekend. I usually start something with the intent to at least give it a solid chance and thereby have at least a few trophies on most of mine. It’s funny that you mention Wipeout because that’s one that I sit at 1% completion. It was just too hard for me for some reason. It is in my 1% club along with Battleborn (eeesh..), Dishonored, and Dragon Age Origins. The latter two being victims of just being at the wrong place at the wrong time due to the PS4 coming out and overshadowing them to the point I just never made it back to them. I have one 0% game that I keep on there, Soul Sacrifice, which I keep thinking I’ll eventually go back to. But who am I kidding? Maybe I’ll try the delete function on that one. Most of the others that are less than 10% I have realistic intentions to return to — Arkham Knight, Trails of Cold Steel, AC Black Flag... to name a few.

@RogerRoger @Th3solution Since I joined PS Plus, my trophy list has started seeing more instances of this kind of thing - the one-or-two percents. So games like Table-top Racing or Lords of the Fallen now sit in my trophy collection looking thoroughly sorry for themselves, their rubbishness plain for all to see.

I quite like these little reminders of the bad or little-played games though. They remind me of the time me and the kids booted up Transformers Devastation and smashed up some Decepticons, or the time me and my mate started Prince of Persia PS3 thinking it was going to be the best thing we'd ever played and found ourselves laughing at how bad it was. The pathetic trophy counts are the gaming equivalent of scars - we should wear them with pride!

In terms of quality-of-life improvements, I'd like the ability to display my favourite five trophies on my PSN profile. Not necessarily for bragging rights (although it would be useful for that too) but just for the ones I had the most fun getting. I'd also like to look at a trophy and see how many of my friends have it, without having to go to their trophy list. And progress counters towards trophies would be good, as many have said in the past.

If I'm being really fussy, I'd like the feature to challenge a friend to 'race' to a trophy. I'm not sure how this would work exactly, but I'm just the ideas man. Sony can sort that out.

Some of this stuff can be done - by using sites like True Trophies and PSN Profiles. But it would be cool to have this kinda stuff integrated in the trophy system.

One way you can cut down on low trophy %s is to create another profile and used it to try out games your not sure of thats what i do

I have absolutely loads of games at like 2% on my list. I don't really care though - I like having a history of what games I've played. How else would I ever remember that I got the platinum in Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~?

I have tons of low and partials too.

Don't really care too much, the few plats and high %'s I have are from games I really enjoyed. Apart from Resistance: Burning Skies, that was almost impossible not to plat!

@RogerRoger Yeah that's the beauty of it, you could just pick whichever five you wanted. Your five rarest plats, or your five favourites or whatever.

Actually you've made me realise one of my pet hates - when developers put minimal effort into trophy artwork. So like when there's one with a 5 in a circle for reaching level 5, then a 10 for reaching level 10, and so on. Rubbish.

@RogerRoger You haven't downloaded Spotify yet?! =O

@RogerRoger I love Spotify.

Streaming certainly has its limitations - and I still prefer the sound of a CD through decent hardware, but it's just so damned convenient!

I hated the interface at first - I was a Music Unlimited user for quite a long time until Sony sacked it off. MU was great, integrated seamlessly with the Walkman app!

@RogerRoger Yeah those Absolution ones are ace. I like the old Fallout ones, they nailed the feel of the cheerful 1950s-style "don't play with radiocative waste, kids" cartoons perfectly

@RogerRoger I guess you never played Ridge Racer Revolution with a Black Crowes CD in the PS1 then 🤔😂

I rarely pay attention to the PS4 menus or profile truth be told.

Trophies are fine in the sub menu for me.

@RogerRoger "but couldn't ever reconcile starting and then leaving a game heavily focused on narrative, like an Arkham game or Assassin's Creed. Wouldn't you just need to restart it from the beginning?"

I do this more than I should and have basically sacked story driven games off for the time being. The reason you start them is you want to be hooked (for me HZD, MGS 5, spiderman) as these experiences once complete are more fulfilling than finishing most short burst arcade games. but either life circumstances or other factors stop you enjoying them. I have 3 games which will kind of explain that.

1 session - Nier Automata, it didn't grab me and played for around 6 hours. I knew it got better but had other things to do at the time and knew on advice that it would take a while to warm up. With that it's been on the shelf since.

3 sessions - God of War, amazing game I put a good 10-12 hours into it over a couple of days. Life got in the way and by the time I played it again had completely forgotten what I was doing, where I was going and how the menu screens worked for upgrades etc. It was pure frustration. I have never played it again.

Started twice - Witcher 3, started it up straight after MGS 5 and regardless of what anyone ever tells me the game was a chore to play compared to MGS 5. It was choppy and I just didn't like how Gerault controlled. I started it back up a few months later, got a bit further and for all the furore over how great the side stories were didn't enjoy the first few missions. I deleted the game.

So to summarise story driven games can be unwieldy during contradictory time poor sections of a gamers life regardless of the quality. Yet we still want to attempt a play through in order to reach the heady heights of a satisfying game story completion. Inevitably leading us to ditch said game and play Rocket League instead.

@RogerRoger The only time I listen to Spotify on my PS4 is whenever the game has licenced music, such as sports or driving games. At least that way i dont have to listen to some of the garbage from the game. And the recommendations have got a lot better of the last couple of years, they are less frequent and more accurate. I've had a couple of songs I personally would not have in some playlists, but you are gonna get that. I've also listened to music i wouldn't normally given the time to, where as if I was still mainly buying stuff I would be more likely to be sticking with the music I felt more comfortable listening to.

@themcnoisy It's weird that you couldn't get back into God of War, cos I started playing Resi Evil 7 again after over a year of not playing it and managed to pick things up pretty quickly. Admittedly GoW probs has more going on than RE7, but I thought I would struggle more than I did.

@JohnnyShoulder It's where I was when I saved (trying to find secrets) and the fact the buttons are slightly different to other games. Don't get me wrong I could have stuck with it but again something came up and I shut the Ps4 down. GoW has loads going on without you realising it and gradually builds up. The point I was at was about 3 hours after you meet the world serpent (that could be a lie as I actually can't remember) so everything was unlocked and available to use.

I think that's the problem with games and being an adult with loads of responsibilities. You do get distracted and immersion comes a sorry last to quick fire thrills. Maybe it's why the likes of Cod and Fifa are so popular as they barely change. More recently I have watched more films and books (well manga and marvel platinum series in my case) as you can literally carry on without having to re acclimatise. Im on a programming course on top of work and family stuff so it's all kerfuddled.

The opposite of that situation was Spiderman. I had one or two more lessons before Christmas break without any mandatory homework and had a few holidays days left over in work I had to take. So the planets aligned to let me enjoy it. And I did loads.

@RogerRoger As for the inquiry about how do I manage spending a couple sessions in a heavily narrative type game and end up abandoning it ... well, @themcnoisy kinda beat me to it but I would echo his sentiments. Although his life sounds significantly more complicated than mine, I just easily get distracted by the next thing vying for my attention. Often it’s another game.
So taking the example of those in my 1% trophy club, some had the misfortune of just being games right at the transition from one console generation to another and the game got overshadowed by the next big thing. And sometimes I just don’t know for sure why it happens and a game doesn’t stick.
But amazingly, there are times when one can spend many, many hours on a game and still have only earned 2-3 trophies and so it looks like I haven’t given it a chance, but I have. I think I played the entirety from beginning to end of The Last of Us and only earned like 9% completion. I’m at 10% on RDR2, after somewhere around 20-30 hours, and if I’m not careful, I run the risk of getting distracted before finishing that never ending opus. I could have platinum’d 2-3 simplier games in that time, at least.
And I think it is easier to drop in and out of less narrative games, like puzzle games, racing games, fighters, etc. That seems to help their longevity. But like Noisy says, if there is a slight distraction then a narrative game has the disadvantage of being hard to remember what was going on if a few weeks has passed.
Besides life being busy with work, friends, family, other hobbies — the other issue to me is just the sheer volume of options available now. The same thing applies to Netflix where I have started about a dozen series and never finished them because I get wooed away to try another one and forget about the other series I started and never completed. Apologies to The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, Daredevil, and all the countless other shows I only made it a few episodes into.
Anyways, I have a lot of respect for those of you who can stay focused on a single game and complete it without distraction. I wish I knew your secret. Perhaps I just need to up my ADD meds. 😉