Avoiding 30 Minute Plats

[Darling Baphomet]

I'd say generally speaking anything 85%+ rarity is a guaranteed ezpz. The 70-80% range includes a fair few games which are easy but take at least a few hours. There's a few games which still take some effort (e.g. actually playing the game to complete) in the low 80s, but 80% seems to be the EZPZ threshold to me.

 

I generally try to avoid games with a rarity of 60% or more these days, however there are many good games above that percentage. Just have to indulge in moderation as otherwise you end up with a list flooded with 5 hour platinums. If a game is 80% rarity or higher the chance of me buying it is very low unless it seems particularly good (e.g. the Gardens Between).

Edited May 22, 2022 by Darling Baphomet

[Ich1994-1994]

6 hours ago, StygianWolf4 said:

 

But you'll miss out on the 1% that is actually worth playing. @DrBloodmoney has given some perfect examples for this, which I agree with. 

 

Heck, rarity shouldn't always dictate what games we play. Just enjoy the games y'all wanna play. (That is to everyone btw, not directing it at you specifically)

 

But then again, the PSNP rarities are slightly different, so it's not always easy to know. 

I know but if you want a solution that’s easy to maintain I think it’s viable. There are to many good anyway to play them all in a lifetime^^ also he is probably in a situation we’re he finds good games by mouth to mouth propaganda and in such case he has easy acces to information about the game and if it’s a 30min plat.

 

of corse rarity shouldn’t dictate but it is a indicator that has influence so why not use it to some degree

Edited May 22, 2022 by Ich1994-1994

[Alos88]

3 hours ago, Quink666 said:

I would just avoid the shitty developer ezpz’s. Avoid Ratalaika and Breakthrough in particular. There are now other developers who port/create games that prey on people addicted to trophies. It’s scummy just like gambling and loot boxes is scummy. 
 

I stopped playing the dog shit easy plats almost 2 years ago and it has gotten so much worse since then. Some games have as much as 16 stacks iirc. There are a ton of easy plats out there but a lot of them are high quality indie games worth your money and time. Life is Strange: True Colours for example. It sits at 70%> but is still worth a playthrough if you can snag it on a sale. 
 

So don’t be discouraged by the high completion % and just Google the game before buying it. If the games requires you to actually beat it, it’s most likely not one of the shitty ezpz’s.

Rata occasionally publishes good games, rare as it is. The Anodyne games and more recently Puppet Combo's games have been ported thanks to them.

[Ich1994-1994]

7 hours ago, Han_the_Dragon said:

Artifex Mundi and Visual Novels would disagree with you..

 

There are quite a few games that have platinums that common that actually are decent..

 

The only way to avoid them is to research for the game that you are interested if it's a 30 minute platinum or not..

There is even a ton of 90+% games that are very good

ratalaika games started as a publisher for indietitels who couldn’t find a publisher and the trophies are often that easy because you only have to play a tiny fraction of the game. Foxy land 1 and 2 and gravity duck arecsuch examples

so I never wanted to say games with a rarity above 70% are not got (I love ratchet and clank and I think rift apart is above that for another example) 

but the task was to filter out 30min plat and I think to fulfill that task avoiding games above 70% rarity works as a very easy solution with minimal time investment of research. Of corse you miss out on a few good Titels but you miss out on good Titels no matter what as there are to many out there to ever play them all

 

 

[Darling Baphomet]

14 hours ago, StygianWolf4 said:

But you'll miss out on the 1% that is actually worth playing. @DrBloodmoney has given some perfect examples for this, which I agree with. 

 

The thing is, you're going to miss out on good games regardless of how you select them. Doesn't really matter what filter you apply, there's just too many games to reasonably keep up with.

[TheBlaskar]

My System: Browse PS storefront, pretty much clicking on everything. Look at screenshots and read synopses. Then, if the game sounds cool, do the following:

1) YouTube for Gameplay

2) MetaCritic for Reviews (critics, not fans unless you want to read political views)

3) PSNProfiles for Average Percentage, Unobtainable Trophies, etc (whatever matters most to you)

 

I hope this helps! Happy gaming

[Happy]

I only buy games that I think look interesting and are probably decent value. I don't really let platinum difficulty affect that decision, although the "decent value" part generally filters out >1h games.

Kinda just have to repeat the sentiment, don't just buy games blindly.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Happy

[aZombieDictator]

All you gotta do is

 

https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/12750-avoid-them-breakthrough-gaming-arcade

 

 

[You]

Some of the best games I ever played in the 90s lasted less than 30 minutes. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out what the bad games are. Length shouldn't be an issue.

 

[AJ_Radio]

This can go the other way too. Personally I think ultra rares are respectable, but there's plenty of games with ultra rares that are probably not that fun to play.

 

I thought six Sound Shapes stacks was bad, but these last three to four years have really opened the floodgates for garbage to seep into the PlayStation Store. Say what you will about the PS3 and early PS4 era, but there was a better quality control check at that time. At least, that's what I like to think of it. Overly easy games were usually regulated to 100% only titles, most games with platinums had to be a certain length.

 

Difficulty related trophies and even trophies for beating the game have mostly been tossed out. These games that these developers crank out are designed this way, to be finished in five minutes or less.

 

Yes, there are easy games that are a lot of fun, but a great deal of Ratalaika games and Breakthrough titles are not fun at all. Breakthrough is an embarrassment. It's like playing those old ass 1970s era arcade games, that aged like sour milk.

Edited May 23, 2022 by AJ_Radio

[You]

I personally think 98% of Ratalaika's games are fine. I mean, they're short sure, they're easy sure, but they're actual games. Decent ones and many had physical releases.

It should be so easy to read between the lines at which games are trying to be games and which clearly aren't games and are instead a cash grab.

[DrBloodmoney]

9 minutes ago, enaysoft said:

I personally think 98% of Ratalaika's games are fine. I mean, they're short sure, they're easy sure, but they're actual games. Decent ones and many had physical releases.

It should be so easy to read between the lines at which games are trying to be games and which clearly aren't games and are instead a cash grab.

 

Word.

 

I actually thought the one benefit to the new glut of trophy delivery mechanisms (The Zebra Q / The Jumping Quesadilla / Lizard Lady and the Hopeless Waste of Time / BJ Blastoball and the Christian Pixelpocalypse etc...) would be that folks would get over using Ratalaika as a punching bag.

...it's kind of odd that they're still a by-word for ridicule isn't it?

 

I never understood why they get the brunt of the blame for something they're doing no different than many other publishers...

 

Hamster put out small arcade ports, add some easy trophies to them... and everyone is fine with it.

Ratalaika put out small indie games, add some easy trophies to them... and the elitist crowd lose their collective shit ?

Edited May 23, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[You]

2 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Hamster put out small arcade ports, add some easy trophies to them... and everyone is fine with it.

Ratalaika put out small indie games small games, add some easy trophies to them... and the elitist crowd lose their collective shit 

 

Hamster though, feels like they just put trophies in because Sony requires at least something. Also those games are old, some are great, many are poop. But they were made in the 80s though, and back in a time when you could print out the entire source code to a few sheets of A4.

And many of them are better than the games released in the 2022s.....

 

Not many people on the leaderboards use Hamster these days because you need to pay about 100 dollars worth of games (and likely about 4-5 hours) just to equal a 1 dollar platinum.

Perhaps in 2015 Hamster were the go to for easy trophies, before Ratalaika, and then after Ratalaika, shovelware became the most cost efficient way.

 

I can't say I was ever a huge fan of Ratalaika's games, I mean I only own game which I didn't like, it looked like a good game even when seeing it on youtub. I also have Turrican and that's arguably a game from the 90s and not really much to do with Ratalaika. That's not to say their games are bad though, most of them look great, I mean clearly, each of those developers were proud that their games were being released through Ratalaika, easy trophies just helped their games sell a bit more.

 

People complained the games were too easy but I rarely heard anyone saying these games are barely even games.

 

[Jerry_Appleby]

I stopped buying EZPZ games back when I first bought Iron Snout (summer 2019). That game was so bad that it made me realize that I'm not going to be spending my money on crap just for platinums anymore. And I've enjoyed gaming a lot more when I stopped playing those types of games. I've been working on some older PS3 titles and it's a lot more satisfying seeing a plat pop for something that you took time to work on rather than a 3 minute game.

 

That being said, I don't avoid all 90%+ platinums out there. I really enjoy the Pic-a-Pix games and some of the Powgi games (usually the number based puzzles).

I've always hated the fact that they make the latter plats for only completing like 10% of the puzzles, so there are fewer puzzle enthusiasts playing them than trophy whores. I sometimes like to speedrun those games by completing every single puzzle before earning a single trophy, then going for the record breaking time by finishing up the last trophy-related puzzles for the plat.

But I do wish the devs would stop catering to trophy whores and release a platinum for completing every puzzle, not just the 20 or so for individual trophies.

[sepheroithisgod]

You can usually identify games above 80% as EZPZ cash grabs (it's why I supported 75% as the cutoff point for ribbons). There are some visual novels that can end up in this tier, but the majority of titles will be Ratala or Breakthru crap. Granted some people genuinely like these games, Powgi comes to mind (shame they don't actually make harder lists).

 

As others have said, you just need to do a Google search to be safe. Shovelware is rampant and Sony seems to be on board with it.

 

 

[ExHaseo]

I really don't understand the problem here.

 

If all you want is trophies, wouldn't you want the easier and faster plats?

 

If you aren't just looking for just trophies, then who cares if the trophy list is easy or hard? If it looks fun and you want to play it, buy it. You can spend however long it takes to get the plat or however long you enjoy it. Whether it's a short bite-size game that takes 30 min and has a 90%+ rarity or a 100+ hour plat that's less than 1%. If you're enjoying a game after getting the plat, you are allowed to keep playing it too.

[dieselmanchild]

Usually the garbage shovelware titles are pretty obvious and easy to avoid to be honest. I wouldn’t completely disregard anything & everything with a high platinum % though, as in rare cases some games might actually be hidden gems you might otherwise skip over. You should always take a little peek just to be certain.

 

As for finding quality games to play, I have a few methods. Over time I’ve identified many legitimate trophy hunters on this site and I like to quietly creep their profiles for inspiration or talk to them about what they’re playing. I also like browsing the trophy checklists on the forums where you can find a lot of in depth reviews and discussions on games you’ve never heard of before. Getting involved in community events on this site or joining some trophy groups is great and provides a lot of ideas for fun, quality platinums as well as motivation.  I’ve found many hidden gems this way, you just have to dig around a bit. ?

[AJ_Radio]

20 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

The thing is, you're going to miss out on good games regardless of how you select them. Doesn't really matter what filter you apply, there's just too many games to reasonably keep up with.

 

This has always been the case.

 

Contrary to what most people here think, gaming was far more expensive 20 years ago. I regard the PS2 era as the "golden era" of gaming for a number of reasons. AAA developers were allowed to take risks and experiment with new ideas. It was a fruitful and prosperous industry. The only people taking risks right now are the indie and AA developers. Even then, there's a plethora of crap from both departments.

 

Now, I live on my own in my mid 30s, and can afford a number of games that I was never able to get when I was teenager. To this day I discover PS2 games I never even heard of, that era was full of hidden gems so I'm really hoping some of those PS Classics get a much deserved re-release.

 

We forget inflation values. New games cost $59.99 or more when I was working part time back in 2005 - 2006. Minimum wage was far lower back then. We can argue about season passes, NFTs, lootboxes and so forth all day, but that doesn't change the fact that gaming as a whole was far more expensive decades ago.

 

I still remember when the PS3 was released and Sony was asking for $600 for it, which was probably one of the big reasons why it had such a slow start in contrast to the Xbox 360.

[Arzoden]

If you don't want cheap & Easy Platinums just quickly search up the game before you play it?

 

But i mean it's very obvious what games are quick Platinum grabs.

 

Also i have never understood why people are so against quick & Cheap Platinums... Each to their own i guess

[Snake_1302]

They're not that hard to avoid. Even by just eyeballing a game as well as its price on the store page you should be able to recognize almost immediately if a game exists only for the platinum.  Easy plat games are almost always games that no one would ever bother spending time on if trophies weren't involved. Absolute shovelware that seems cheap even by Wii shovelware standards. Just ask yourself "would I still want to play this game if it didn't have trophies?" If the answer is no then its likely a shovelware easy plat game.

[MidnightDragon]

Some games with high completion are real good, but try not to do anything sub 1 or 2 hours anymore since most of them are crap. Not all. Arrog only took me like 30 minutes, but still enjoyed it. 

[LegendExeter]

Maybe just avoiding all games priced at $0.99 or $1.99 or less would do it?  I imagine none of them are priced too high.

[JourneySilvers]

A lot of people have pointed out that there's a difference between shit EZPZ and quality EZPZ games (ofc I agree with this) but do we have a thread with suggestions for the quality EZPZ games? I personally really like winding down with those and would like to read up on more of them. 

 

I actually do appreciate Rata regardless of some of the garbage they put out. I love RPGmaker style horror games and as far as I'm aware they're one of the few publishers putting those on PS. Red Bow and My Big Sister are the kinds of games I enjoy from them. 

[starcrunch061]

On 5/22/2022 at 3:52 PM, Alos88 said:

Rata occasionally publishes good games, rare as it is. The Anodyne games and more recently Puppet Combo's games have been ported thanks to them.

Rat’s published quite a few good games. Their problem is the shitty trophy lists, not the games themselves.

 

On 5/31/2022 at 8:33 AM, JourneySilvers said:

do we have a thread with suggestions for the quality EZPZ games?

If we don’t, I’d happily contribute, but I have trouble using the search function well here.

Edited June 3, 2022 by starcrunch061

[mega-tallica]

My perspective is that many AAA modern games require just as little effort and skill than these 'EZPZ' games, the only major difference is the time you have to invest to plat them.

 

To me, that doesn't make them much different from each other. Whether you have to wander around a city for hours to collect hundreds of meaningless spirit collectibles like in Ghostwire: Tokyo or clicking the x button a thousand times for a game like My Name Is Mayo, what's the difference? They're both tedious, easy tasks but one game it takes 10x longer and that's considered a 'quality' plat while My Name Is Mayo is stigmatized just because it doesn't take as long? 

 

With as easy as AAA games are now to plat so they can exploit the trophy hunting community, it's only natural for indie games to follow suit and do the same and exploit it as well. The whole thing has been dumbed down and it's not just these 'EZPZ' games causing it. AAA games are doing the same thing. I just find it odd where more serious trophy hunters draw the line in the sand when it comes to feeding their obsession with trophies. Where the line gets drawn for what is acceptable and what isn't. It's all silly to me. I guess I'm not as obsessed with this stuff as others are and I'm totally fine with that.