[Musing] An Impending Trophy Hunting Cataclysm?

[starcrunch061]

Well, as another Rat defender, I must confess that I always thought their trophy philosophy was a race to the bottom. And with the recent release of Breakthrough Gaming Arcade, we're seeing this manifest itself. Honestly, I'm surprised Sony hasn't implemented things like a trophy list for purchasing products, or watching Sony movies, etc.

 

All I can say is, it's hilarious to see that a game like Hannah Montana or Megamind doesn't even raise an eyebrow now.

[AJ_Radio]

3 hours ago, starcrunch061 said:

All I can say is, it's hilarious to see that a game like Hannah Montana or Megamind doesn't even raise an eyebrow now.

 

That's because they're old games. Miley Cyrus should of never progressed past Hannah Montana, how she is still around and relevant is beyond me. Should of died out like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

 

Terminator Salvation and Magus are two more PS3 games that are easy that had a bad reputation.

[DrBloodmoney]

For someone who (rather passive-aggressively) says:

 

7 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

 I’m mostly fed up with DrBloodmoney’s arguments

 

(you know - where you are talking about me, but without actually having the common curtesy to tag me or quote me)

 

...you sure do love coming on to every thread I start and dragging them way the fuck off topic.

 

 

6 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

 

That is why I gave up on Hollywood a long time ago. Modern mainstream music went down the shitter because corporations decided to get mediocre performers all the promotions and marketing, because it's easier than to spend years on a performer fine tuning their talents. Selena Gomez, Kesha, Kayne West, Justin Beiber. People who automatically think these performers care about the quality and art in their work is a complete lie, because I will just spit in their faces. Journalism and the media itself have also been tarnished. You're not getting quality news from MSNBC or Fox News, it's all propaganda bullshit and bold faced lies.

 

2 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

Miley Cyrus should of [sic] never progressed past Hannah Montana, how she is still around and relevant is beyond me. Should of [sic] died out like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

 

 

What does any of this have to do with how trophy websites track leaderboards and cater, or fail to cater, to an increasingly militant force challenging the paradigm of easy trophies?

 

That was what the topic was, you know.

You would have known that if you actually, you know, read the original post, rather than ignoring it purely because I wrote it, and you have clearly decided that I am one of the things on your long list of grievances?

 

 

Instead of just seeing this thread as yet more blank space to fill up with your never-ending tirade against anything and everything, perhaps you could actually... you know... contribute to it?

I would welcome that AJ.

You are a good trophy hunter.

I would be interested in your input to the actual topic.

 

 

 

[dieselmanchild]

13 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

I guess you mean the real trophy hunters are the ones who play actual games and work hard to achieve them?

Precisely. In my view, there are basically 2 different camps - trophy hunters and trophy whores. (Pardon my French)

 

Trophy hunters adhere to the original spirit of this hobby. To them, a platinum trophy represents completing or conquering most of the challenges a game has to offer. They see it sort of like a digital badge of pride or a roadmap of their gaming history and accomplishments. Hunting trophies doesn’t define their purpose for gaming in the first place, but rather, they become a way to seek out an extra challenge or full completion in the games they love and are interested in.

 

Trophy whores are a different breed entirely, and hunt trophies purely for the sake of collecting trophies. They don’t care about the tasks behind the trophies themselves or what each trophy may represent, they are far more interested in arbitrary numbers and stats on their profiles, and collecting as many as possible, as fast as possible. These players are much less likely to play games they love or find interesting, especially if those games look long or challenging in any way. Instead, these people gravitate towards any & every game that will allow them to collect as many quick, effortless trophies as possible, even if this often leads to feeling miserable obligated to play shitty games that they hate. This is less of a hobby for them than it is an addiction.

 

13 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

Hakoom taking a different stance was a bit of a surprise for me, I saw him play some actual challenging games on his profile. And I will admit, he has done a lot of impressive stuff, but over 90 percent of his profile is simply junk. You have to stack junk upon junk to ever get on the top leaderboards, which is something I will never do because I don't have the time and money to do it. Also I just find it boring.

 

I don’t want to talk about Hakoom too much more since I don’t know the guy personally, but I agree it was surprising to see him change gears like that. I honestly think he was pretty miserable though, and was so obsessed with maintaining his rank 1 position that it began to completely suck all the joy out of trophy hunting. I saw him talk about the stress and exhaustion of this numerous times.

 

I don’t know what allowed him to mentally let go and slow down enough to allow the Roughdawg account to pass him, but I do know that since he let it go, he just looks and sounds so much happier since he let go of that burden. He still competes aggressively of course and maintains a high trophy output with garbage games, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he ends up back on top one of these days. But he seems to balance a lot more of his time with tougher games, AAA releases, as well as his YouTube, family and other hobbies. And he just physically looks a lot healthier than he did at one point lol.

 

Yes, the majority of his profile is made up of junk, which is an unfortunate necessity if you’re competing for the top page of the leaderboard. But he does have some really impressive gems buried deep in his profile. His most impressive games trump anything I have on my profile at this point!

[starcrunch061]

10 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

What does any of this have to do with how trophy websites track leaderboards and cater, or fail to cater, to an increasingly militant force challenging the paradigm of easy trophies?

 

We cannot be stopped. We cannot be reasoned with.

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

On 4/18/2021 at 10:36 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

Well, it’s Sunday, it’s still Lock-down, and it’s time for another 'DrBloodmoney Lengthly Musing' that most people won’t read. ?

 

I have been thinking recently about the future of Trophy Hunting, in the wake of some of the general prevailing trends across the hobby as a whole.

 

Now - I preface this by saying - I am not a trophy elitist. 

My Ratalaika-defending credentials are readily available on this site, and my view that a good game is a good game, regardless of the difficulty of the trophy list is self-evident in my trophy list. 

 

What I am saying here is not a dig, or an admonishment, or an attack on anyone.

I am musing on the future of a pastime I love, that is all. 

Please do not think I am taking aim at you, or sermonising to anyone.

 

Also - I use the term cataclysm in the ‘upheaval and change’ context, not the ‘total destruction’ context - that’s important to note!

 

 

Anyway…

 

More and more, I have been starting to feel the inevitability of some sort of existential reckoning, or cataclysmic change, with regards to the leaderboard philosophies and the Trophy Hunting websites that cater to them and set them, PSNProfiles included.

 

There was a time, back in the days of the PS3, when an ‘easy platinum’ (or a ‘trash-plat’ or ‘junk-plat’, whatever term you favour) meant a few well known, yet still somewhat lengthly games. Hannah Montana, Terminator Salvation, some of the Pixar Tie-In games, some of the later Telltale games etc. 

The fact that I can specifically name them speaks volumes about the relatively minor effect they had on the general leaderboards at the time.

 

Over the course of the PS4 era, however, that relatively small contingent exploded exponentially. 

What began with the Arcade Archives games (a mix of quality, for sure - there are some great games in there, but trophy-wise, they are extremely easy and quick), and the occasional one-off ‘trophy-for-cash’ games (My Name is Mayo / Slyde/ 1000 Top Rated etc.)  was followed by the explosion of EastAsia Studio and Ratalaika games. (I myself have defended those many times in terms of the quality of some of the games, but I cannot in any way defend their policy on trophies, adding up to 8 ‘stacks’ for every release.) 

Now, the latest low in the trophy hunting race to the bottom is upon us, in the form of the ‘Breakthrough Gaming Arcade’ games - a set of platinums so hopelessly devoid of quality, effort and value that I truly believe they will be the looked back upon as the final catalyst for the impending changes I now see as inevitable.

 

 

While there was once a time when I rolled my eyes at statements by ‘Elitist’ Trophy Hunters claiming that “anyone could amass 300-odd platinums in a few months” and dismissed them as over-wrought hyperbole and sniffy-nosed elitism, now, I have to finally admit that, while that may have been exaggerated then, it is literally true now.

 

I feel like the whole community - in most aspects a conglomerate, a loose assembly of plethora of small sub-groups - is beginning to fracture into 2 distinct overarching groups with regards to these types of games - those for, and those against them.

Even people like me, who once fell broadly in-between - are being slowly pulled into one camp or the other, as the permeation of the gaming landscape with these easy, stackable platinums grows and grows in size. It is becoming impossible not to be forced to pick a side, even if one feels that it is simply a case of choosing the lesser of two evils.

 

Even on PSNP, (historically the most egalitarian and non-elitist of the trophy sites,) the push from what was once a small portion of the user base for more tailored leaderboards, catering to hunters who focus specifically on rarity, or completionism, or scarcity, as opposed to the pure, raw, numbers game has steadily grown over the years from a bubbling undercurrent - easily dismissed or ignored by the majority - to a roaring, churning sea has been slow, but has been gaining pace and volume all the time, and is - I feel - beginning to reach a critical mass.

I feel like I see pretty much the same number of post decrying these games, and calling for their exclusion from the leaderboards, as I do of threads proclaiming the virtues of the next 1-hour platinum, and filled with positive comments and elation at the number of stacks and the ease of trophies.

 

It really feels like this is becoming an unsustainable dichotomy.

 

 

Once, not terribly long ago, I would play any game I felt like, and if it was a Ratalaika game where the platinum came in the first hour, or an Artifex Mundi or Telltale game, where the Platinum is a guarantee, it felt fine. 

 

More recently, playing those games began to feel a little different - still fine, but more and more I felt that there was a sense of tut-tutting and poo-poo-ing from some aspects of the community, and I felt more and more the need to justify playing these game - both to myself, and to others.

That the common understanding was that I would have only played these games for quick trophies, and that any argument that I might have actually enjoyed them was ludicrous.

 

I tried hard to avoid those kind of feelings ever affecting what I played, and for the most part that worked fine, however - and now I come to the crux of my point - now, playing such games is giving me pause for a different reason:

I'm beginning to worry that having too many ‘easy’ games on my profile may affect the longevity and viability of my profile.

 

I’m beginning to feel that soon, there will be changes to the way these sites actually cater to trophy hunting. 

It feels inevitable that the way in which profiles are tracked will begin to change dramatically in the next few years, and I am starting to worry that having too many ‘easy’ games will end up with my profile being excluded from whatever leaderboards exist in the future entirely. 

 

Whether it happens on the existing sites, as a result of the crescendoing push for alterations to the leaderboards, or if the existing sites stagnate, and some new player enters the scene, I do not know, but I feel like - based on the number of threads requesting change - if some new site did pop up, that offered the same levels of service as the current ones, but excluded anyone with too high a percentage of easy games, or discounted stacks, or required a certain rarity percentage for inclusion, it would immediately siphon off users from the existing sites at an alarming rate.

 

If that were the case, I’m almost worried that playing too many Ratalaika games, or EastAsiaSoft games or the likes, may be potentially precluding my inclusion in the hobby I love, somewhere down the road.

 

 

 

Maybe I’m just getting Covid-crazy and seeing patterns where there aren’t any - always a possibility! ?- but I’d be interested if anyone else has been feeling the same?

Like maybe we are closer to the end of trophy hunting as a raw-numbers game than to the start of it, and that maybe the winds of change are starting to blow?

 

 

 

 

 

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

[DrBloodmoney]

2 minutes ago, PhyrxianLibrarin said:

 

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

 

Dang.

 

Well in that case, a large fries please.

[Orenn16]

3 hours ago, dieselmanchild said:

Precisely. In my view, there are basically 2 different camps - trophy hunters and trophy whores. (Pardon my French)

 

Trophy hunters adhere to the original spirit of this hobby. To them, a platinum trophy represents completing or conquering most of the challenges a game has to offer. They see it sort of like a digital badge of pride or a roadmap of their gaming history and accomplishments. Hunting trophies doesn’t define their purpose for gaming in the first place, but rather, they become a way to seek out an extra challenge or full completion in the games they love and are interested in.

 

Trophy whores are a different breed entirely, and hunt trophies purely for the sake of collecting trophies. They don’t care about the tasks behind the trophies themselves or what each trophy may represent, they are far more interested in arbitrary numbers and stats on their profiles, and collecting as many as possible, as fast as possible. These players are much less likely to play games they love or find interesting, especially if those games look long or challenging in any way. Instead, these people gravitate towards any & every game that will allow them to collect as many quick, effortless trophies as possible, even if this often leads to feeling miserable obligated to play shitty games that they hate. This is less of a hobby for them than it is an addiction.

 

 

I don’t want to talk about Hakoom too much more since I don’t know the guy personally, but I agree it was surprising to see him change gears like that. I honestly think he was pretty miserable though, and was so obsessed with maintaining his rank 1 position that it began to completely suck all the joy out of trophy hunting. I saw him talk about the stress and exhaustion of this numerous times.

 

I don’t know what allowed him to mentally let go and slow down enough to allow the Roughdawg account to pass him, but I do know that since he let it go, he just looks and sounds so much happier since he let go of that burden. He still competes aggressively of course and maintains a high trophy output with garbage games, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he ends up back on top one of these days. But he seems to balance a lot more of his time with tougher games, AAA releases, as well as his YouTube, family and other hobbies. And he just physically looks a lot healthier than he did at one point lol.

 

Yes, the majority of his profile is made up of junk, which is an unfortunate necessity if you’re competing for the top page of the leaderboard. But he does have some really impressive gems buried deep in his profile. His most impressive games trump anything I have on my profile at this point!

It’s not as black and white as your trophy hunter vs whore statement makes it seem, though. You act like it’s one or the other with folks and it simply isn’t the case. I’ve loved gaming for ages and it’s definitely my primary hobby. I spend far too much time every single day on reddit, game news sites, etc purely hyping myself up for big releases I’m excited for. I love the stories video games tell. I love the way gameplay augments those stories. 
 

I love games, so much, and I play everything I love first and foremost, and often try and plat them.

 

That said, between games I love, I ALSO love the leaderboard climb and play some serious junk too. I’m very proud of my list despite the trash because it’s full of games I adore and those games always come first. 
 

But your post makes it seem like folks like me with trash games don’t often make times for games of passion, and maybe don’t appreciate the spirit of games. That’s not true. In fact, frankly, at a glance looking at our profiles, it seems to me you’re the one more focused on arbitrary numbers. I might play trash games, but my cabinet consists of only trophies that represent games I loved, trophies aside. Your cabinet is full of generic trophies you clearly only placed there due to rareness.

 

You preach yourself a trophy hunter who appreciates the art of gaming, who isn’t distracted by meaningless number pumping, who is better than a trophy whore who only cares about the numbers. Yet your cabinet tells a different story. A story of someone more obsessed with claiming a rare prize instead of enjoying the art of the game.

[Rally-Vincent---]

4 hours ago, dieselmanchild said:

Precisely. In my view, there are basically 2 different camps - trophy hunters and trophy whores. (Pardon my French)

 

Trophy hunters adhere to the original spirit of this hobby. To them, a platinum trophy represents completing or conquering most of the challenges a game has to offer. They see it sort of like a digital badge of pride or a roadmap of their gaming history and accomplishments. Hunting trophies doesn’t define their purpose for gaming in the first place, but rather, they become a way to seek out an extra challenge or full completion in the games they love and are interested in.

 

Trophy whores are a different breed entirely, and hunt trophies purely for the sake of collecting trophies. They don’t care about the tasks behind the trophies themselves or what each trophy may represent, they are far more interested in arbitrary numbers and stats on their profiles, and collecting as many as possible, as fast as possible. These players are much less likely to play games they love or find interesting, especially if those games look long or challenging in any way. Instead, these people gravitate towards any & every game that will allow them to collect as many quick, effortless trophies as possible, even if this often leads to feeling miserable obligated to play shitty games that they hate. This is less of a hobby for them than it is an addiction.

 

In which camp do you put those good burghers of PSNP who use glitches, boosting multiplayer trophies, save scumming etc.?

Edited April 20, 2021 by Rally-Vincent---

[Shua_J]

On 4/19/2021 at 7:28 PM, AJ_Radio said:

 

I have a number of difficult 100 percent only PSN titles that most people here just skip over because there is no platinum at the end. Super Stardust HD and Crazy Taxi are more difficult than practically anything Ratalaika Games has pumped out and even modern AAA games. But I loved those old PSN games, they were both a challenge and I had a blast.

 

Actually, I'm 99.9 percent certain I saw your list on PlatinumBro's reviews. You're right on the money from what I know about those games (I have a ton of indies and arcades on deck myself after I'm done cleaning up my list and getting things respectable)...you've got some serious bangers on there.

Edited April 20, 2021 by Shua_J

[Hisuiryu]

21 hours ago, Orenn16 said:

Your cabinet is full of generic trophies you clearly only placed there due to rareness.

 

You preach yourself a trophy hunter who appreciates the art of gaming, who isn’t distracted by meaningless number pumping, who is better than a trophy whore who only cares about the numbers. Yet your cabinet tells a different story. A story of someone more obsessed with claiming a rare prize instead of enjoying the art of the game.

Going a little off topic - but they haven't put anything in the trophy cabinet, that's the just the automatically generated list of their rarest trophies. In fact, their profile doesn't have that many ultra rare trophies, certainly not compared to people that actively play for them...

[dieselmanchild]

On 2021-04-20 at 10:09 AM, Orenn16 said:

It’s not as black and white as your trophy hunter vs whore statement makes it seem, though.

 

Of course my assessment is a bit of a simplification. Like all things in life, there are grey areas that exist in between and lots of people that don’t fit into either camp. But generally, with the way trophy hunting has evolved and what side of the ezplat debate people find themselves on, I think most people end up leaning towards one camp or the other.

 

I also think you took this a bit too personally. After looking at your profile, I agree it wouldn’t necessarily be fair it entirely accurate to call you a trophy whore. Yes, you pad your list quite heavily with trash games as you call them, and use them to inflate your stats, but I also see you’ve also got a lot of really impressive platinums and an impressive variety of games. I’ve seen much worse offenders.

 

On 2021-04-20 at 10:09 AM, Orenn16 said:

You preach yourself a trophy hunter who appreciates the art of gaming, who isn’t distracted by meaningless number pumping, who is better than a trophy whore who only cares about the numbers. Yet your cabinet tells a different story. A story of someone more obsessed with claiming a rare prize instead of enjoying the art of the game.

 

I’m actually genuinely puzzled at what you mean by this. I’ve only been on PlayStation for 4 years & trophy hunting for 3 of them, during which time I’ve spent most of my time playing catch up on a lot of the great franchises, PS exclusives, and popular titles I never got to experience over the last 3 generations of Sony consoles.

 

Almost everything I’ve played has been something I’m really interested in, and during this time I have used my love for hunting trophies to expand my horizons and branch out into many new genres and types of games I may have never played otherwise. Other than PS+ titles and free games etc, I tend to do a lot of research on games before I buy them, and so the ones that do end up on my profile are games I really want to play and have decided would be really enjoyable to pursue. 
 

If I was obsessed with numbers, I would surely give in to the temptation to start bagging 300 plats/year like many other players instead of my measly few trophies per day, but that’s just not how I want to spend my precious time.

Also I know you were trying to insult me here, but I’m actually a little flattered. ? Idk what you mean by rare prizes as I’ve actually got very few URs and no 10/10 plats as I’ve spent most of my time over the past 3 years focusing on enjoying all the classic games I never got to play and discovering new genres, like I described above. This year I will achieve the long term goals I’ve been working on for 3 years, after which I plan to start focusing a little more energy towards collecting some of the rarer platinums that have been conquered by a lot of the trophy hunters I really admire. I want to keep pushing forward as a gamer and as a trophy hunter and it’s all part of that evolution.

 

On 2021-04-20 at 11:10 AM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

In which camp do you put those good burghers of PSNP who use glitches, boosting multiplayer trophies, save scumming etc.?

.jpg[/img]

 

 

[AihaLoveleaf]

32 minutes ago, dieselmanchild said:

Spoiler

 

.jpg[/img]

 

 

 

 

Now this is funny, although I may or may not have been guilty of being the man between the truck once or twice already...

Edited April 21, 2021 by AihaLoveleaf
Messed up my quote

[Rally-Vincent---]

@dieselmanchild Let me rephrase my question, then: Which camp suits those kind of people more? And where is the cutt-off?

[Orenn16]

3 hours ago, dieselmanchild said:

 

Of course my assessment is a bit of a simplification. Like all things in life, there are grey areas that exist in between and lots of people that don’t fit into either camp. But generally, with the way trophy hunting has evolved and what side of the ezplat debate people find themselves on, I think most people end up leaning towards one camp or the other.

 

I also think you took this a bit too personally. After looking at your profile, I agree it wouldn’t necessarily be fair it entirely accurate to call you a trophy whore. Yes, you pad your list quite heavily with trash games as you call them, and use them to inflate your stats, but I also see you’ve also got a lot of really impressive platinums and an impressive variety of games. I’ve seen much worse offenders.

 

 

I’m actually genuinely puzzled at what you mean by this. I’ve only been on PlayStation for 4 years & trophy hunting for 3 of them, during which time I’ve spent most of my time playing catch up on a lot of the great franchises, PS exclusives, and popular titles I never got to experience over the last 3 generations of Sony consoles.

 

Almost everything I’ve played has been something I’m really interested in, and during this time I have used my love for hunting trophies to expand my horizons and branch out into many new genres and types of games I may have never played otherwise. Other than PS+ titles and free games etc, I tend to do a lot of research on games before I buy them, and so the ones that do end up on my profile are games I really want to play and have decided would be really enjoyable to pursue. 
 

If I was obsessed with numbers, I would surely give in to the temptation to start bagging 300 plats/year like many other players instead of my measly few trophies per day, but that’s just not how I want to spend my precious time.

Also I know you were trying to insult me here, but I’m actually a little flattered. Idk what you mean by rare prizes as I’ve actually got very few URs and no 10/10 plats as I’ve spent most of my time over the past 3 years focusing on enjoying all the classic games I never got to play and discovering new genres, like I described above. This year I will achieve the long term goals I’ve been working on for 3 years, after which I plan to start focusing a little more energy towards collecting some of the rarer platinums that have been conquered by a lot of the trophy hunters I really admire. I want to keep pushing forward as a gamer and as a trophy hunter and it’s all part of that evolution.

 

.jpg[/img]

 

 

I’m not trying to insult at all! I’m trying to bring you perspective that everyone enjoys the hobby differently than you, and what you deem “lazy” or not worth while trophy hunting might be valuable to others who look at your list and might think the same thing.

 

Primary point being; people can play easy plats as well as focus of games they love. They often do.

[AJ_Radio]

10 hours ago, Orenn16 said:

I’m not trying to insult at all! I’m trying to bring you perspective that everyone enjoys the hobby differently than you, and what you deem “lazy” or not worth while trophy hunting might be valuable to others who look at your list and might think the same thing.

 

Primary point being; people can play easy plats as well as focus of games they love. They often do.

 

I've seen diesel's trophy profile several times and there is practically nothing on his list that I deem as skillfully impressive or something that is a horrendously long grind (Orcs Must Die Unchained, Gran Turismo 5, etc). But I still admire his list because he is taking the time with games he wants to play and he enjoys playing them. Something that a lot of us that we admittedly have tossed out.

 

I'm sorry but your list seems to be a lot of going after easy trophies. Breakthrough Gaming Arcade is one of the worst trophy whore titles out there, I've seen the games myself and they just look and perform shitty. Also stacking a game like Legends of Talia: Arcadia twice on two different systems, both in under two minutes?

 

This is why I say the count means nothing anymore. If that adds salt in the wound for anybody who sees this post as overly negative, then I'm sorry. I'm being honest and truthful here.

Edited April 22, 2021 by AJ_Radio

[DrBloodmoney]

28 minutes ago, AJ_Radio said:

 

But I still admire his list because he is taking the time with games he wants to play and he enjoys playing them. Something that a lot of us that we admittedly have tossed out.

 

I think @Orenn16 is saying exactly this - and I agree with you that it is sad that some folks seem to have left that 'enjoyment' factor by the wayside.

 

 - easy games can exist on a profile right alongside hard games, and a healthy profile will likely have both - once you have over a hundred games on a profile, you would need to be going out of your way not to have a big mix of rarities and difficulties.

 

 

I think both he and @dieselmanchild are making fair points - and I 100% agree with what @Orenn16 said in regards to this.

 

I feel like this is my camp exactly that he is describing ?

 

I play purely games that I fancy the look of and enjoy - ignoring difficulty wherever possible - and that philosophy is borne out completely in the rarity percentages of my platinums.

 

(yes, I know rarity =/= difficulty on a 1-to-1 basis, but as a rough indicator, it’s broadly accurate)

 

Within the last 10 plats I got, the rarities swing from a 0.45% to an 87.99% and a whole bunch inbetween- but I can comfortably say that I enjoyed all the games to some degree, and didn’t feel cheap, or that I was duped by any of them.

Certainly I played them all because they looked fun, not based on the difficulty one way or the other.

 

I’ll admit to feeling a little saddened when I see a profile that is only stacks and stacks of super easy stuff - but not because I’m angered or dismayed about the leaderboards or my position vs theirs or anything like that.

 

It’s only because it suggests the person has possibly fallen into a pattern where they aren’t really enjoying the gaming anymore, and selecting games based on difficulty alone. 
 

Frankly, I get the same feeling to some degree when I see an ‘Ultra-Rare Hunter’s profile with nothing but incredibly rare, super-difficult or obscure stuff too.

 

I’m sure there is a satisfaction of some description in both of these types of profiles, but it can’t be the same type of satisfaction that gaming brought them in the pre-trophy days, and what drew them to gaming in the first place - I assume.

 

 

My friends and I used to have a theory - that if you looked through someones iPod, and there was nothing but ‘embarrassing’ music on if (whatever that might be - you know what I’m talking about, cheesy pop and the likes), they just had ‘bad’ taste but at least they liked something.

 

 If they had no ‘embarrassing’ music at all, it meant they just didn’t like music ?

It was just a means to an end - a way to look cool, and not to enjoy listening to.

 

 

I kinda look at gaming profiles the same way - if theres nothing easy on it, then you are clearly picking games based on difficulty, which is not different really than EZPZ stackers - they do the same thing, but from the opposite end.

Picking games based on anything other than what you will enjoy, is folly, in my opinion.

 

Edited April 22, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

[Orenn16]

11 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

 

I've seen diesel's trophy profile several times and there is practically nothing on his list that I deem as skillfully impressive or something that is a horrendously long grind (Orcs Must Die Unchained, Gran Turismo 5, etc). But I still admire his list because he is taking the time with games he wants to play and he enjoys playing them. Something that a lot of us that we admittedly have tossed out.

 

I'm sorry but your list seems to be a lot of going after easy trophies. Breakthrough Gaming Arcade is one of the worst trophy whore titles out there, I've seen the games myself and they just look and perform shitty. Also stacking a game like Legends of Talia: Arcadia twice on two different systems, both in under two minutes?

 

This is why I say the count means nothing anymore. If that adds salt in the wound for anybody who sees this post as overly negative, then I'm sorry. I'm being honest and truthful here.

It sounds to me like you’re looking at some of my most recent games. My profile is full of plenty of more challenging or “normal” games as well. In fact, I think you’d be hard pressed to find very many triple A or otherwise mainstream games that I don’t have in my profile with at least the story completed. All go back up my point that yes, when things are quiet for the big releases I get excited for and DO play, I occupy my team with easy trophy stacks. My point being you can have both, contrary to what diesel was claiming.

[scemopagliaccioh]

Excessive, I doubt anything will change regarding trophy  hunting.

I  stated several time that I  dislike Ratalaika  and the like because they're basically preying on an addiction, that won't  change, exactly like the people who defend it won't  change.

My only fear, is that the rarity Leaderboard  will never be added, so I suppose you could say that  my fear is exactly the limbo of this situation.

[AJ_Radio]

3 hours ago, scemopagliaccioh said:

Excessive, I doubt anything will change regarding trophy  hunting.

I  stated several time that I  dislike Ratalaika  and the like because they're basically preying on an addiction, that won't  change, exactly like the people who defend it won't  change.

My only fear, is that the rarity Leaderboard  will never be added, so I suppose you could say that  my fear is exactly the limbo of this situation.

 

Your list is good. Just sort of irks how how much the people defending Ratalaika stacks tend to go opinion wise. We all get it at this point.

 

Sadly, the average rarity statistic that was listed on our trophy profiles on the old website layout (prior to late 2016 - 2017) will probably never get added either. The best thing I've seen is the rarity leaderboard on PSNtrophyleaders, and that is full of flaws.

[MrBeens]

The thing that irks me the most about the 'ezpz' plats is that I spent over a decade working hard on being a completionist and slowly building up to 250 plats.  Now someone can literally get double that in less than a month with next to zero effort.

 

It's like you train hard for months for a marathon and then as soon as the race starts, they decide that they're gonna let kids on electric scooters compete too.   

[DrBloodmoney]

10 hours ago, MrBeens said:

The thing that irks me the most about the 'ezpz' plats is that I spent over a decade working hard on being a completionist and slowly building up to 250 plats.  Now someone can literally get double that in less than a month with next to zero effort.

 

It's like you train hard for months for a marathon and then as soon as the race starts, they decide that they're gonna let kids on electric scooters compete too.   

It’s true - and it’s a good analogy - but remember, the kids on electric scooters only look like they’ve won to people who know nothing of the sport.

 

Anyone with even a passing interest in running understands which people are competitors, and which ones are pretenders - and given that trophy hunting is a niche hobby, only of interest to others within the community, really, who are the scooter people really impressing?

[Rally-Vincent---]

11 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Anyone with even a passing interest in running understands which people are competitors, and which ones are pretenders - and given that trophy hunting is a niche hobby, only of interest to others within the community, really, who are the scooter people really impressing?

 

Obviously, they leave an impression on the runners who started the race years ahead of 'em.

[AihaLoveleaf]

I was browsing some game pages today and stumbled upon what is, in my opinion, the perfect model for an "ezpz" game that happens to have trophies. The Idolmaster: Gravure For You!

 

If you've never heard of the series, they are basically games where you snap pictures of girls from the Idolmaster series in something of a "photo shoot" session with the idol of your choice. The trophies are in Japanese but you can get the idea that it's a simple game that people can complete very quickly. You can blitz through it in under 10 minutes, or really take your time to enjoy the game, but either way you're rewarded appropriately for the difficulty and effort involved with the game.

 

Every game in this series has a total of 15 trophies: 13 Bronze, 1 Silver, 1 Gold. A simple and appropriate 100% list. Even if these games were localized in other regions and stackable, the single Gold trophy from each of these games probably aren't going to break the leaderboards.

 

This should have been the exact model that games of extremely low difficulty, effort and time investment were required to adhere to.

[elpoko]

This is an interesting topic and I do think all these low tier Platinums have diminished our hobby but ultimately I don't really care.

Leaderboards mean nothing to me as the only person I compete against is myself.

I have 3 of these so called junk Plats (2 Midnight games and Squareboy) on my profile.

At the time I was kind of bogged down with the skill point grind in Sekiro and I couldn't get off the ground in The Division 2 so I decided I needed something to shake off the grind and maybe just bump my plat count a little and thats exactly what those 3 quick and easy plats did so I do think they serve a purpose.

I approach from a live and let live angle, you play what you want and I'll play what I want and we can all enjoy our shared hobby however we choose.