Are we forever slaves to the backlog ?

[PalaceOfLove706]

1 hour ago, charxsetsuna said:

Assuming EDF means earth defense force, dont those games take hundreds or more hours to plat?

Yes, that’s correct. Hundreds.

 

However my coop brother and I overcame some initial difficult weapon grinding and now I see a path to the platinum, with armour grinding of course. Just need the commitment. If we get it, it will be our rarest platinum, beating Wipeout HD.

[xZoneHunter]

32 minutes ago, PalaceOfLove706 said:

Yes, that’s correct. Hundreds.

 

However my coop brother and I overcame some initial difficult weapon grinding and now I see a path to the platinum, with armour grinding of course. Just need the commitment. If we get it, it will be our rarest platinum, beating Wipeout HD.

 

Good luck. I hope you're doing it couch co-op since online co-op is twice as long and harder since the enemies' HP scales differently.

Edited January 12, 2021 by xZoneHunter

[AJ_Radio]

3 hours ago, enaysoft said:

If you want to get to 98% I'd recommend going back to games like GTA5 and Fallout 4 on your list, even if you don't want to get 100%, just trying to get the percent as high as you can and stopping when the game is taking the piss. I've done that with a lot of my backlog, if it's less than about 70% I usually try to get most of them out the way. Those 2 games alone are probably dropping your overall score by 0.3% or so.

 

Fallout 4 is definite. Not sure about Grand Theft Auto V, I basically played both stacks purely for fun. I'll be perfectly good with getting everything to an A rank, because I don't plan to get everything to 100 percent (which is impossible anyway due to Uncharted 2 & 3  on the PS3 being unobtainable).

 

Even though I have a high completion, even I have my limits.

 

3 hours ago, Trini said:

Tbh I surprised myself by eliminating a small fraction of my backlog and obtaining the platinum for said games during the October-November period. 

 

As for the actual topic at hand, I feel like our backlogs will predominantly have control over our spending habits unless you're on a very strict budget and can fight off the craze appetite of spending. For the folks who work/attend school, it's just not enough hours during the day to play all the games we would like, and if we do have that time, an entirely new catalog of games will suddenly pull our interest, and the never-ending cycle continues to devour us from that point on. 

 

I knocked out quite a bit thanks to COVID-19, though that may change as I plan to get an actual job pretty soon. Still too many games for me to play, would like to get my number down to 30 - 40, which will be a lot more manageable.

[PalaceOfLove706]

39 minutes ago, xZoneHunter said:

 

Good luck. I hope you're doing it couch co-op since online co-op is twice as long and harder since the enemies' HP scales differently.

Couch co-op it is! With my brother! We’re having a blast and are up to the challenge. 

[MickeyMixLipa]

It's better to have a backlog of games you look forward to than not having one at all imo. 

 

Having choice is the best thing we can all have, rather than have nothing to do. Nobody will ever not have a backlog when it comes to gaming, movies, TV shows etc. As soon as you finish one, another will pop up that you're interested in. That's the joys of having a hobby, something new will always pique your interest which is what keeps us coming back time and time again. 

[StraightVege]

These days, I try to view it in a healthier way. There are innumerable games I'd like to play, films I'd like to watch, songs I'd like to hear, and books I'd like to read, but there will never be enough time to get to all of it. That's fine; at least I have an abundance of interesting things to choose from.

[mecharobot]

Got to have realistic goals, so I can feel good about achieving them, instead of crying that I'll never plat ICO for PS3. I aim for 75 plats (only 5 left this year), but what I really hope is to find an older game or two that I can consider as my personal favorite tier. Overall I'm not going to be beating or platting dozens of games with the way I play games and the genres I play. Especially not with my current job, so it's already a miracle if I somehow am able to get those remaining plats and beat half a dozen long RPGs/VNs on top of it. That will really take all year.

[MikeCheck--]

Problem is, there is never enough time to play ALL the games we'd like in our lifetime, and balance work, relationships, health, etc. You have to pick and choose. I'm trying hard to get to a point where I can  take a break. Even then I will just play casually. Maybe make yourself a goal and don't buy anymore games until the goal is met. That's what I'm attempting, but it is difficult. 

[Super_Mep]

The backlog struggle is real. I've done a lot of damage to it the past year which I'm super happy about. But there's still much work to do. I enjoy it though as I set goals and try my hardest to get them. And I've saved serious $$$ cuz I'm focused on the backlog. Not to say I haven't gotten any new games but nothing like I used too haha.

[Draps-1337]

On 1/13/2021 at 9:05 AM, MikeCheck-- said:

Problem is, there is never enough time to play ALL the games we'd like in our lifetime, and balance work, relationships, health, etc. You have to pick and choose. I'm trying hard to get to a point where I can  take a break. Even then I will just play casually. Maybe make yourself a goal and don't buy anymore games until the goal is met. That's what I'm attempting, but it is difficult. 

Yeah, I'm really trying to do this. I've spent every waking moment while I'm not working, sleeping, and cooking dinner for the family to play games over the last two years. This has brought down my back lock significantly from 800 unplayed/unfinished games to only just 361. But with this, I feel like I've sacrificed a lot. hardly been reading books except for visual novels. I haven't been seeing friends, haven't been practicing and improving my professional skills, my other hobbies have gone by the wayside and all I can talk about is the games I've been playing. Honestly, if I kept up my current pace and didn't buy any more games I might be done in 1.5 years. but then I miss out on the cool new games coming out and I also miss out on all the things I've already been missing. I've been having quite the existential crisis lately of how much time I have been sinking into the hobby of playing games and it's pretty unhealthy. I still exercise on my way to and from work (3km walk each way in my commute), the whole time I have my head in a switch game or vita game. I have loads of fun while I'm playing all these games I have really been excited for, but the time spent is so huge now that it feels like wasted time. That time could have been better spent learning/improving a skill, spent on a hobby, starting a business, etc.

[MikeCheck--]

32 minutes ago, Draps-1337 said:

Yeah, I'm really trying to do this. I've spent every waking moment while I'm not working, sleeping, and cooking dinner for the family to play games over the last two years. This has brought down my back lock significantly from 800 unplayed/unfinished games to only just 361. But with this, I feel like I've sacrificed a lot. hardly been reading books except for visual novels. I haven't been seeing friends, haven't been practicing and improving my professional skills, my other hobbies have gone by the wayside and all I can talk about is the games I've been playing. Honestly, if I kept up my current pace and didn't buy any more games I might be done in 1.5 years. but then I miss out on the cool new games coming out and I also miss out on all the things I've already been missing. I've been having quite the existential crisis lately of how much time I have been sinking into the hobby of playing games and it's pretty unhealthy. I still exercise on my way to and from work (3km walk each way in my commute), the whole time I have my head in a switch game or vita game. I have loads of fun while I'm playing all these games I have really been excited for, but the time spent is so huge now that it feels like wasted time. That time could have been better spent learning/improving a skill, spent on a hobby, starting a business, etc.

Yes I agree and think about that. What’s these trophies for anyways? They aren’t a skill, won’t get my anywhere like say, music would or studying. Day by day it isn’t much but over years it’s a lot of time that could be spent elsewhere. 
 

that’s why it’s important to not say no to going out or seeing friends. The games will be waiting, experiences will not 

[Z1MZUM]

On 1/12/2021 at 8:21 PM, PalaceOfLove706 said:

I try to look at it positively and think, “wow, I have so many games to choose from,” and then take my pick. Recently did Gauntlet and Magika 2 which I hadn’t touched in years, and they were super fun. 
 

Decided to go for an EDF 4.1 plat a couple weeks ago so that backlog is gonna suffer for sometime now. 

 

I have been playing this for years and still don't have the inferno trophies. I'm also playing EDF4 on PS3, EDF5 on PS5 and EDF3 on Via TV, I guess I like to suffer.

[PalaceOfLove706]

5 hours ago, Z1MZUM said:

 

I have been playing this for years and still don't have the inferno trophies. I'm also playing EDF4 on PS3, EDF5 on PS5 and EDF3 on Via TV, I guess I like to suffer.

Almost done the hard runs, and then it’s onto Hardest. Lol...yeah I’m “only” about 85-90 hours in, 60% of weapons collected. But my brother and I have momentum on couch coop, and some good strategy. I still have positive feelings

[Novella1986]

I've been gaming for around 25 + years now. I often look back at the Playstation 1 days when I first played Metal gear solid, GTA etc. wishing I could go back to them days where you could just enjoy the game however you wanted too.

 

Since I started going for trophies gaming has become a bit more of an addiction than a past time. It's like I think about my backlog and what games to play and if I can platinum them as opposed to just playing what I enjoy. You see it with people going for easy trophies for the sake of upping their numbers. Whilst some people are happy to do that and that's fine, Ultimately the backlog will never go down if you are a trophy hunter. The two go hand in hand.

 

The problem is this can make gaming a chore and you find yourself thinking how can I shorten this list as opposed to sitting back and enjoying gaming.

 

I guess my advice would be to ask yourself what do you actually enjoy in gaming. Try to lessen thinking of games as a list that you need to get through and pick a selection of games that you really want to play and go for the trophies if you wish to do so. 

 

Mentally try and reset what you think gaming is all about and take a break. I struggle hard with backlog and trophy collecting. It can start to consume your life and all you think about is the next trophy. Don't burn out on gaming because it's become overwhelming.

 

[J2VLegacy]

It can feel like the backlog keeps on growing with no end, I just keep on trying and not be stressed out about it.

[Jelly Soup]

The bottom is so deep you can no longer see the top.

There was no start.

There will be no end.

All is the pile and all will be the pile.

[Slate_M]

On 1/9/2021 at 3:14 PM, Great_MazingerZ said:

I'd like to discuss this issue with you guys/trophy hunters fellows, honestly i feel like as long as we trophy hunt, most of us have a huge backlog and it's always there and always we got tons of incomplete unfinished games, as for me i made a list of games that i want to platinum and they are way over 300 games across ps3, vita and ps4, ps5 games are not even in that list yet so imagine !!!

last year 2020 i platinumed a total of 11 games only which really really sucks and scary, if i continue at this rate that means not even 20 years are enough to finish those games but the problem is i have a job that takes most of my day and when you come back home from work i get back tired and not really in the mood to play games, so yeah this and the length of lots of platinums, many games require over 50-100 hours to plat.

Now i know some of you guys will say well then narrow down your list, this might be a bit of a solution but it's not easy especially that i already bought and paid for those games, nonetheless i avoid those Rataliaka games, RPGs and sports games.

so let's say if i focus on about 15 - 20 games to beat and platinum this may take few months and by that time guess what ? you find out another 15 new games are out and here we go again, sometimes i feel like it is easier to make and create a game than beat it lol those developers never rest.

So what do you think guys of this ? i'd like to see opinions and creative ideas and solutions.

Lmao you might not like my list then. I've always wanted to go back and finish as many as I can, but several issues I have with that are:

 

- I no longer have a ps3, so rip almost half my list? not sure what % of it are unfinished ps3 games

- Some games have defeated me no matter how many times I try to return to them *cough* meatboy *cough*

- Multiplayer in a lot of games is usually my downfall. I've never been able to enjoy it much and it doesn't help that a majority of my friends are on pc and xbox.

- Games that end up getting dlc awhile after I earned the plat and it usually boils down to me starting a fresh new save to earn the 100% back. This can take a decent amount of extra time, like having to fully restart games like bloodborne or Horizon Zero Dawn (which required 2 new playthroughs for ng+).

- And worst of all, there was a time where I was very busy balancing work and school and went on gaming hiatus for about a year and a half, maybe longer. This was pretty detrimental in cementing my current completion % as I now find myself buying and playing loads of new games to try and make up for lost time, as well as digging through the past to find what I missed.

 

As for ideas or solutions, one thing I started doing, that personally helped me start cleaning up older games, was to go through my purchased list and select the "hide from purchased" option on anything I have completed. While this website has things like the trophy advisor and whatnot, I found that watching my purchased list get smaller and smaller helped push me to keep at it.

 

As an added side note; Seriously impressed anytime I see a 90%+ completion rate, but I feel like I may never get there with my incessant need to try as many games as possible.

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Stop buying games. There, backlog problem solved.

[ladynadiad]

6 hours ago, Novella1986 said:

Since I started going for trophies gaming has become a bit more of an addiction than a past time. It's like I think about my backlog and what games to play and if I can platinum them as opposed to just playing what I enjoy. You see it with people going for easy trophies for the sake of upping their numbers. Whilst some people are happy to do that and that's fine, Ultimately the backlog will never go down if you are a trophy hunter. The two go hand in hand.

 

Being a trophy hunter and having a large backlog aren't necessarily related.  People with large backlogs are those who buy more games than they have time to play, period.  It is definitely more likely for trophy hunters to end up with large backlog because getting 100% can take longer but that doesn't change the fact that a backlog won't exist if people keep their buying inn check.  It's very simple really.  If you buy more games than you play, your backlog grows further.  If you buy as many games as you play it doesn't grow, but it doesn't go down if you had one.  If you play more games than you buy, the backlog goes down.  Problem is, many people have more money to buy new games than time to play them, so backlogs grow.

[Fing3rButt3r3]

i dont think i will ever get out of the backlog cycle

[TheDarkKratos]

On 1/10/2021 at 6:14 AM, GMZ said:

Are we forever slaves to the backlog ?

For a lot of people - Yes

For the rest of us - No

[SkillsXIII]

I was feeling like this last year I was getting close to 100 games in my backlog. With all the sales that happen in the PS store I would pick up 1-3 games each sale that I wanted to play for 5-20 bucks and say "I would get around to it". So last year I broke that habit. I told myself I wasn't  going to spend any money on games until the backlog was cleared. The only exception was for the FF pixel remaster bundle and if I received a gift card for Christmas/birthday. I stuck to that the whole year last year and broke the sale cycle. So this year I updated to I can buy up to two new games and they each hold a "slot" and if there is a free slot I can buy a game and if not I need to finish one of the games in the slot. While still working on the backlog. Then once I have cleared the full backlog I will add a 3rd slot to this new routine and that is probably going to be how I handle games from now on. 

 

For me a game has to meet one of these criteria for it to be considered removed from the backlog.

 

-Get the Platinum

-Reach the end credits of the game

-Play it for 1 hour for every $1 spent on it

-Sell it

 

Then I just organize the games in folders on my PS4. 

 

-Current Games (Games I'm working on/play regularly)

-Active Backlog Day (Kid appropriate backlog games)

-Active Backlog Night (Non-Kid appropriate games)

-What to Plat/100% (games that have been removed from the backlog but I enjoyed and want to platinum or pickup/finish dlc)

 

So that's my backlog story

 

if you made it this far .... You probably could have finished a game from your own backlog. Lol 

 

Thanks for reading and feel free to take my system for backlog cleaning up and make it your own. 

 

Have a good one and happy hunting.

 

 

 

 

 

[iSympathie]

I think we are and probably till I'm dead. I can't keep up and my job only allows me to play on the weekends and a few hours during the week.

[GMZ]

Yes, the job is in the way big time despite that i can play everyday but after work i am beat so it's hard, it's only about sometimes a lot of games go cheap and that creates the backlog there are also a lot of games i don't own since developers don't stop making games so i won't buy the most recent games until they become way cheaper so those are considered a backlog to me because eventually i will buy them.

[shadaik]

No, but yes.

 

To me, the issue is less  that I have game sunpayed.  That is fine,  I know I'll neve rhave played each and every game I own.

The issue is more that my list is cluttered to the point I struggle  to decide what I'd like to start next.