This shovelware spam is making trophy hunting less fun

[AJ_-_808]

30 minutes ago, Pots3k said:

I'm trying to care less about the PSNprofiles leaderboard now and instead focus on the Truetrophies one. I think their system is actually quite well done, especially when it allows for things like ignoring duplicate trophy stacks. 

 

For your own enjoyment, that may be the best option for you

[Pots3k]

5 minutes ago, Ciri Riannon said:

Wow this argument thread escalated very quickly.

I actually really appreciate how civil and constructive it is too! 

[TomataEighty9]

1 hour ago, Pots3k said:

Since getting my 200th plat I've been quietly plugging away at my list and slowly making my way up the NZ leaderboard which has been a fun goal to work towards. All of a sudden, I've lost three places to people who have just platted 10+ of these stupid mayo games. It is really disheartening and is killing my enjoyment of trophy hunting.

 

Oh and to anyone lined up with a "none of it matters" or "who cares" or equally unimaginative post, I'll cut you off right now because, you see, the point of a leaderboard is to create an environment of competition between people which is inherently important to the people involved. If you're not interested in that competition, good for you, other people are.

 

I see your point, but the leaderboards IS a competition, and just because YOU don't like the way that competition has evolved, doesn't mean it's wrong. 

 

Don't get me wrong, i don't play those types of "games". But i just play/plat games for ME, and i don't use the leaderboards as my method of validation. I play and plat games i find good and worth playing, that i WANNA play, and my competition is myself. 

 

Nothing wrong in leaderboarding, but then you kinda have to accept the way it works and go grind shitty "games"  

[AJ_-_808]

18 minutes ago, Pots3k said:

Yes that is another major issue!! I used to love jumping onto PSNP daily and looking at the new trophy lists. That revealed many games to me that I had no idea were coming to PS. That's gone now.

 

Husky's work on psnp+ minimized the stacks and took a good first step towards alleviating this problem 

[Pots3k]

Just now, AJ_-_808 said:

 

Husky's work on psnp+ minimized the stacks and took a good first step towards alleviating this problem 

Oh! This psnp+ thing is entirely new to me, I saw someone reference it earlier but I thought they were just joking. 

[AJ_-_808]

Just now, TomataEighty9 said:

 

I see your point, but the leaderboards IS a competition, and just because YOU don't like the way that competition has evolved, doesn't mean it's wrong. 

 

Not sure evolved is the right word. Platinums became far more available/cheesy than they were at leaderboard's inception.  I don't think the people in charge saw that coming... or cared

[FilmFanatic]

24 minutes ago, Pots3k said:

Oh! This psnp+ thing is entirely new to me, I saw someone reference it earlier but I thought they were just joking. 

I’d recommend checking it out as it has a lot of useful features. One of the latest ones is reducing a shovelware title to just a single trophy list with a +x for the total number of new trophy lists for that game. As a current example, Rainbow Mix Advanced +3 instead of 4 separate trophy lists for that game.

[MidnightDragon]

Worry about what you do and not worry about others so much.

[XeoZin]

I used to care about the amount of platinum trophies too, was once in top 20 in Denmark.

Back in the PS3 days a quick platinium trophy still took hours to get. PS4 days ratalaika games started to come and a quick platinium was around 1-2 hours ( some faster). Now in the PS5 era a quick platinium is 5-10 minutes games.

It felt kinda sad to see profiles getting more trophies than me where a profile had like 10000 gold trophies and only a few bronze. I seen alot of profiles above me where there isnt a single game in their profile that takes more than 1-2 hours to platin tops.

 

I started to care less since i dont want to buy a ton of showelware now, i was fine with ratalaika games they at least had some fun for me, but all the new games with 10 variants of press x button for 5 minutes is too much for me.

Now im more going for getting all platins in series i like as all from software games, god of war games, assassins creed games etc. 

 

Edited August 30, 2022 by XeoZin

[Lordguwa]

23 minutes ago, FilmFanatic said:

Rainbow Mix Advanced +3 instead of 4 separate trophy lists for that game.

 

i hope they keep the timestamps of each game completed. prefer the old lists tbh.

[DrBloodmoney]

2 hours ago, Pots3k said:

Oh and to anyone lined up with a "none of it matters" or "who cares" or equally unimaginative post, I'll cut you off right now because, you see, the point of a leaderboard is to create an environment of competition between people which is inherently important to the people involved. If you're not interested in that competition, good for you, other people are.

 

The issue as you see it is not likely to be solved, as there are only two ways to correct it.

 

1. Top Down

 

This would be Sony stepping in to solve the issue... but that won't happen, because as far as Sony is concerned there is no issue with the Leaderboards... because there is no Leaderboard.

 

There is no such thing as an "official" or "Sony endorsed" Leaderboard - as far as they are concerned, trophies are not something designed to be viewed as a global ranking. If they were, there would be an official leaderboard.

As far a Sony is concerned, trophies are only there to compare with your friends or whatever.

All global leaderboards of all stripes are on third-party sites, and not affiliated with Sony. They have no vested interest, nor responsibility to maintain the integrity of a system that they had no part in creating or maintaining, and do not officially endorse.

 

Sony may do something to reduce the prevalence of these games the PSN Store (they appear to already be attempting to do so) - but that is only to clean up the visibility of these "Games". It isn't about getting rid of them.

 

2. Bottom Up

 

That would be by the community, by either rejecting these games en-masse - (which will never happen, as any competition where an easier path exists, will naturally have people gravitate to it, and even if EVERY person currently at the top of the leaderboard rejected these games completely, they would simply be replaced by new folks, using the same "games" to rise up it)...

 

... or by the creation of other sites / leaderboards that favour other statistics - (which already happens on every site but this one... and none of them have made any difference anyways.)

 

 

So in conclusion...

...it's not "fixable".

 

As such, the only way to solve the "problem"... 

...is just to not care about it.

Enjoy trophies the way Sony sees them - as a competition with your friends and yourself - and not with everyone on the planet, many of whom will naturally have a completely different set of values they assign to the hobby.

Edited August 30, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[CptToffer]

I think the issue is two fold.

 

Firstly, stacking. I don't know what more you can do with that apart from a filter. It's not like you can bar them from a leader board all together because whilst I think it's down right god damn strange, to purchase a game multiple times and play it multiple times all for the basis of trophy hunting, folk do it. Cross play, I get a little more because the games usually take time etc. But if folk want to spend their money on playing the same game multiple times, let them indulge that strangeness.

 

Secondly, is what constitutes an easy platinum. I would argue that something like Foxyland or Jack and Jill DX - yeah, easy trophies. My Name is Mayo is a weird one because whilst not difficult, it requires something of a grind, even if that grind lasts for hours and not months. 

 

But what about Untitled Goose Game or Goat Simulator? Nothing about them is inherently difficult, they're a "sort of" platformer and there are some problem solving elements and that's it. Arguably there isn't a million miles between them and Foxyland. All of them reward trophies for doing relatively little when you compare them to say Bastion or Control.

 

I think that's the core issue. There will never be a consensus about where to draw the line and the vast majority of discussions on this site will conclude with "PSNP+ is better/if only we could update the site". 

[pinkrobot_pb]

5 minutes ago, CptToffer said:

But what about Untitled Goose Game or Goat Simulator?

I did not find it very difficult myself, but Flappy Goat is responsible for many a broken controller.

[DrBloodmoney]

4 minutes ago, CptToffer said:

But what about Untitled Goose Game or Goat Simulator? Nothing about them is inherently difficult, they're a "sort of" platformer and there are some problem solving elements and that's it. Arguably there isn't a million miles between them and Foxyland. All of them reward trophies for doing relatively little when you compare them to say Bastion or Control.

 

These are very strange examples... 

...without a guide, Untitled Goose Game is significantly more difficult than both Control and Bastion... and while Goat Simulator is easier generally, it still takes quite a bit longer than both those games to actually S-Rank.

 

As such, this appears to be you suggesting that Bastion and Control are "not a million miles" away from the likes of Foxyland... which I think is the opposite of what you meant?

 (Admittedly, I haven't played Foxyland, but I'm assuming, from context, that it's one of the very easy games.) 

 

[GUDGER666]

Leaderboards are pretty much pointless anyway, it's a right mess. You have these stupid quick press X plats, lots of cheaters and team accounts. Most if not all top trophy hunters aren't even trophy hunting anymore they are mostly just buying a plat. 

 

Ratalaika is where the line should've been drawn, i bought a fair few cheap in sales and decided to finally start playing them to free up space, they are fairly quick to plat but you have to actually play them and some require a bit of skill, not just press x for a 30sec plat. You can earn more plats in a couple of hours than i have in 14yrs! Daft. 

 

Like I've said before PS3 leaderboard is where it's at, i recently made it into top 50 in UK and it felt good! 

[Pots3k]

10 minutes ago, CptToffer said:

I think the issue is two fold.

 

Firstly, stacking. I don't know what more you can do with that apart from a filter. It's not like you can bar them from a leader board all together because whilst I think it's down right god damn strange, to purchase a game multiple times and play it multiple times all for the basis of trophy hunting, folk do it. Cross play, I get a little more because the games usually take time etc. But if folk want to spend their money on playing the same game multiple times, let them indulge that strangeness.

 

Secondly, is what constitutes an easy platinum. I would argue that something like Foxyland or Jack and Jill DX - yeah, easy trophies. My Name is Mayo is a weird one because whilst not difficult, it requires something of a grind, even if that grind lasts for hours and not months. 

 

But what about Untitled Goose Game or Goat Simulator? Nothing about them is inherently difficult, they're a "sort of" platformer and there are some problem solving elements and that's it. Arguably there isn't a million miles between them and Foxyland. All of them reward trophies for doing relatively little when you compare them to say Bastion or Control.

 

I think that's the core issue. There will never be a consensus about where to draw the line and the vast majority of discussions on this site will conclude with "PSNP+ is better/if only we could update the site". 

I get what you're saying but I think there actually is a very clear way to differentiate between the shovelware and the actual games. Let me give you a better example of an easy game that has a plat I'm totally fine with. Donut County. Now go ahead and type into google "Donut County game" and "The Llama L game" and tell me the difference.

[ARIXANDRE]

The PS Store has been a Steam early access mess for a while now. 

 

How many more Jumping "Food Items" Turbo games can there be? 

 

I don't care about the rankings but going through the top 100 trophy "hunter's" collections, are a pile of trash games that no ones cares about but their own OCD. 

[PraiseTheFluppi]

It's sad, but nowadays the leaderboards are practically pay to win.
The more money you put into these crap games, the higher your leaderboard ranking. Nothing competitive, patience dependent or skillbased anymore, just a shitshow of who has the bigger purse.
I like seeing my rank go up on the leaderboard, but fortunately I'm not too interested in it to be truly depressed about it. For everyone that does care about leaderboard rankings and competitiveness, it's just sad. Nothing you can do besides pay to win as well, give up completely or look elsewhere for a different leaderboard.

[melodicmizery]

2 hours ago, Pots3k said:

see, the point of a leaderboard is to create an environment of competition between people which is inherently important to the people involved. If you're not interested in that competition, good for you, other people are.

they are, just in a different way. ive dropped 100 spots on the leaderboard just because ive chosen to play far cry 6. if i want to compete with others ill buy more faster games and i do. gaming doesnt have to have one type of gamer. you have completionists, people who just play as many games as possible and not finish them, people who only go for rare games, people who stack easy games. its like trying to say hip hop is all the same its all different

[Pots3k]

3 minutes ago, PraiseTheFluppi said:

It's sad, but nowadays the leaderboards are practically pay to win.
The more money you put into these crap games, the higher your leaderboard ranking. Nothing competitive, patience dependent or skillbased anymore, just a shitshow of who has the bigger purse.
I like seeing my rank go up on the leaderboard, but fortunately I'm not too interested in it to be truly depressed about it. For everyone that does care about leaderboard rankings and competitiveness, it's just sad. Nothing you can do besides pay to win as well, give up completely or look elsewhere for a different leaderboard.

Yeah, it really is p2w now. Truetrophies has been a pretty great alternative for me now though at least.

Oh and Lali-ho fellow WoL!

[steel6burgh]

2 hours ago, zeitgeist_02 said:

This debate will carry on indefinitely because everyone will draw the line on what is 'shovelware' and 'too easy' just below what they're doing. If we say that 5 minute platinums shouldn't count towards the leaderboard, why stop there? What about 3 hour platinums, or 10 hour visual novel platinums? You see the problem. This can't realistically be fixed.

That isn't how it would be done.  It would be rarity of trophies being assigned different point values all the way down to nothing for 99% rarity or very common trophies.  You just have to use your head a little.  It isn't going to be a couple of guys sitting in a smoke filled room conspiring on which games will count and which won't.  It would involve simple math and be fair for everyone.

[melodicmizery]

16 minutes ago, GUDGER666 said:

Leaderboards are pretty much pointless anyway, it's a right mess. You have these stupid quick press X plats, lots of cheaters and team accounts. Most if not all top trophy hunters aren't even trophy hunting anymore they are mostly just buying a plat. 

 

Ratalaika is where the line should've been drawn, i bought a fair few cheap in sales and decided to finally start playing them to free up space, they are fairly quick to plat but you have to actually play them and some require a bit of skill, not just press x for a 30sec plat. You can earn more plats in a couple of hours than i have in 14yrs! Daft. 

 

Like I've said before PS3 leaderboard is where it's at, i recently made it into top 50 in UK and it felt good! 

i agree with the ps3 leaderboard. if people want value in their leaderboard positions then look there. running out of interesting titles is a problem though

[Pots3k]

Just now, steel6burgh said:

That isn't how it would be done.  It would be rarity of trophies being assigned different point values all the way down to nothing for 99% rarity or very common trophies.  You just have to use your head a little.  It isn't going to be a couple of guys sitting in a smoke filled room conspiring on which games will count and which won't.  It would involve simple math and be fair for everyone.

Truetrophies has already done that and it's great. Wouldn't take much for PSNP to adopt the concept aye.

[DrBloodmoney]

1 minute ago, steel6burgh said:

That isn't how it would be done.  It would be rarity of trophies being assigned different point values all the way down to nothing for 99% rarity or very common trophies.  You just have to use your head a little.  It isn't going to be a couple of guys sitting in a smoke filled room conspiring on which games will count and which won't.  It would involve simple math and be fair for everyone.

 

"a couple of guys sitting in a smoke filled room conspiring on which games will count and which won't" is exactly how DLC rarity was broken on the site already.... 

 

...and until it's fixed, a rarity leaderboard would be about as much use as a chocolate teapot. ?

[Ashande]

I’m going to start off with saying that I personally think the Leaderboards are a joke. There’s trophy trash, there’s Pay-4-Plats, there’s stacking out the whazoo, there’s teams being listed as a single entity with no clear differentiation between them, there’s people cheating who haven’t been caught and/or punished. Focusing on the Leaderboards is only going to cause pain because of it. But.

 

But.

 

The Leaderboard, at least so far as it ties to the Pay-4-Plats situation, is working as intended. The only marker it goes off of is the only one that exists as an immutable and definitive variable set by Sony itself, that being the trophy type and it’s assigned “points.” More points = higher rank. One can argue “it would be better if it worked off of or factored in variable <x>” or if “it scaled somehow with variable <y>” or if “we didn’t count game type <z>” but what all of that boils down to is data manipulation to get a result more favorable or palatable to the person saying it.

 

Further, as others have noticed, it frequently seems to be bitterness or jealousy motivating the drive to alter the system, and the marker for what “doesn’t count” always seems to be just below whatever the individual currently voicing displeasure chooses to play at. I get that; it is irritating to me to think that, according to this ranking system, the 68+ days I have spent playing The Binding of Isaac, meticulously 100%ing it over the course of years and multiple DLC packs, has essentially the same value  - if not less - as someone using their lunch break to hit up The Jumping Burger. But voiding out anything that doesn’t meet your personal criteria of what makes a “valid” trophy or game isn’t - or at least shouldn’t - impact the level of pride or accomplishment you take in something. I see something similar quite frequently in my “day job,” where I encounter authors who are so very proud to tell you they are the #1 Seller in Trans, French, Otherkin, Omnisexual Horror fiction set in Peru… because they’ve removed so many others from the potential ranking that they’re literally the only one; is that legitimately the “honor” you’d want, or one to take pride in? What happens when someone decides some of your plats “don’t count,” for whatever reason, and their voices cause a change in your favored leaderboard that takes you off of it?

 

TL;DR - The Leaderboards are working as intended. It’s unpleasant, but it is what it is. Changing them is accomplishing little but manipulating the data to get a result a given individual likes, and really doesn’t do much except increase an imaginary e-peen. Getting into a what does and doesn’t count situation will ultimately bite almost everyone in the ass, and is potentially a bad idea.