Trophy Spam Issue

[SnowxSakura]

30 minutes ago, enaysoft said:

 

You'll find a lot of people including myself don't even care about the leaderboard. I just want to come to this site and see what new games have come out and not have them scrolled off the new trophy lists window within hours due to 5 stacks of Stroke The Cucumber, Chump Hump Jump or The Quiz Pig Piss Pants Peas G etc games scrolling spamming the site and making the site more difficult to use.

Same, always loved seeing the new lists to see what new games have come out. Now I don't even bother looking anymore due to having to scroll through all of the shovelware garbage to find normal releases

[janzor88]

8 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

In regards to a possible solution, yes, serious.

 

There has been numerous possible solutions posted for years, with absolutely nothing happening and the situation just spiraling out of control.

 

Only let one stack per game count, change the numerical values of trophies etc etc..

@NathanielJohn already posted a possible formula which would weed out almost all of trash for over 5 years ago.

Many other mathematical formulas have been suggested over the time.

 

Unfortunately we have few very vocal imbeciles who complain at the sight of any new change.

For them it is better that the overall quality of the site is horrendous,  than to change to something which is less bad - unless it is a perfect solution, which doesn't exist.

 

 

[MMDE]

16 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

You want to have the site do something about these games, but without destroying a bunch of decent but small games in the process?

 

Okay:

 

You don't need to create all sorts of new Leaderboards, and you don't need to construct some formula using rarity, which would inevitably catch a bunch of good but easy games, and start some massive war over "difficulty vs. rarity"...

 

...you just have the site Auto-Hide all games on all profiles from the Trophy-Mill developers.

 

 

 

Have the site simply maintain a list of developers:

 

ThiGames

Breakthrough Gaming

Smobile Inc.

Zakym

etc....

 

...whose products are simply not recognised as games.

 

 

They can be earned / bought / played etc. by any player, but simply don't appear on the New Games lists, don't get listed in forum game lists, and are auto-hidden on all profiles.

 

Job done. 

 

 

 

This was my initial idea too, same thoughts and everything, but it was met with resistance from other staff. They wanted something more objective.

 

I just think we've gotten to the point where we could tell the worst offenders, and anything that is questionable can stay.

 

For example, I'd argue against Breakthrough Gaming in a lot of cases, except for stuff like the recent Calculators etc. The thing with Breakthrough is that he makes different games (except when it's like challenge edition, with multiplayer options etc lool), he usually just do NA and EU stack. It's just the sheer amount, the short time and the often low difficulty that is problematic here. If the other devs did something more like Breakthrough, I think I'd be less annoyed, but they don't, however, I don't know what I'd feel if they all did either. Dude doesn't do it to just appeal to trophy/achievement hunters though, this dude releases it on all kinds of platforms and it seems more related to his religious mission and probably a way to earn money. idk

 

Also, Rata has been an issue for the longest time, and it's generally an issue when people release easy trophy lists to actual games, and then create one list for each console and lots of regions etc. My thoughts then is that what I suggested would fix this. Either not count stacks at all, or just count stacks that is below a certain average rarity, where 80% would cut off pretty much all of the damaging stuff.

Edited October 18, 2022 by MMDE

[manotelikas]

39 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

Hehe, I don't buy a hundred stacks of the same game. What I have noticed is dedicated players who used to do well on the leaderboards etc refuse to buy any of it, and just falling far, far behind. This site is about trophy hunting, and I don't really think the recent exploitative activity is any good for trophy hunting, it's just harming it.

 

For those who don't know, the "turbo" versions are basically just the normal version sped up. In these games you hold X for 4 mins and watch the trophies pop. In the "turbo" version the trophies pop in like 2 mins instead. For this, they charge you twice the price. ?

Couldn't agree more. The only stacks I can't avoid are free upgrades from good or the better games where I already paid for ps4/ps5 version. Or the ones that has been given for free. But those stacks are so bugged as well so that you need replay some of the game , it varies. But i don't mind as long as i did enjoy the game playing it for the first time.

[SnowxSakura]

1 minute ago, MMDE said:

 

This was my initial idea too, same thoughts and everything, but it was met with resistance from other staff. They wanted something more objective.

 

I just think we've gotten to the point where we could tell the worst offenders, and anything that is questionable can stay.

 

For example, I'd argue against Breakthrough Gaming in a lot of cases, except for stuff like the recent Calculators etc. The thing with Breakthrough is that he makes different games (except when it's like challenge edition, with multiplayer options etc lool).

 

Also, Rata has been an issue for the longest time, and it's generally an issue when people release easy trophy lists to actual games, and then create one list for each console and lots of regions etc. My thoughts then is that what I suggested would fix this. Either not count stacks at all, or just count stacks that is below a certain average rarity, where 80% would cut off pretty much all of the damaging stuff.

Really only should have 1 stack of a game count towards the leaderboards anyways

[Azzmosis]

14 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

You want to have the site do something about these games, but without destroying a bunch of decent but small games in the process?

 

Okay:

 

You don't need to create all sorts of new Leaderboards, and you don't need to construct some formula using rarity, which would inevitably catch a bunch of good but easy games, and start some massive war over "difficulty vs. rarity"...

 

...you just have the site Auto-Hide all games on all profiles from the Trophy-Mill developers.

 

 

 

Have the site simply maintain a list of developers:

 

ThiGames

Breakthrough Gaming

Smobile Inc.

Zakym

etc....

 

...whose products are simply not recognised as games.

 

 

They can be earned / bought / played etc. by any player, but simply don't appear on the New Games lists, don't get listed in forum game lists, and are auto-hidden on all profiles.

 

Job done. 

 

 

This sounds like the simplest solution to the biggest problem.
While the leaderboards being purged of this trash would be nice, it also has a good chance of reducing sales of these joke "games", hopefully to the point where Sony won't be interested in the remaining revenue they provide and get some quality control in place.

[Vindicant]

I've always thought that if they went back to not allowing games like this to have a plat you'd see a dramatic drop off.  It wouldn't fix the older ones but it would stop the deluge.

[DrBloodmoney]

3 minutes ago, MMDE said:

Also, Rata has been an issue for the longest time, and it's generally an issue when people release easy trophy lists to actual games, and then create one list for each console and lots of regions etc. My thoughts then is that what I suggested would fix this. Either not count stacks at all, or just count stacks that is below a certain average rarity, where 80% would cut off pretty much all of the damaging stuff.

 

Personally,I think Ratalaika are the argument against doing it by formula - yes, those lists are easy, and yes, they have stacks - but they are generally good little games, and made to be fun, not trophy-farms.

 

I agree, the stacks can be silly - but I'd say dealing with the truly artless, cynical trophy-mill stuff would go a long way to sorting out the issue - and I personally would be sad to see the site go down the route of discouraging engagement with the easy-but-good, small scope fare like Ratalaika and EastAsiaSoft products. I think those have artistic merit, and shouldn't be viewed in the same light, IMO.

[Aodir]

1 hour ago, MMDE said:

I show people InRL the PSN store and recent releases. It's all garbage there too, and it's sites like this one that drives it, unfortunately.

 

As much as I agree, it's kinda funny in its own way how a fraction of our already relatively small community has such an effect on the actual storefront.

 

Taking ThiGames as an example, if you sort their games by owners the top result is one of the pizza stacks with ~2600 owners, second and third with ~1300 owners and it just goes down from there, not excluding the percentage which are not actually buying these. But I suppose it doesn't take that many sales to make a return on publishing these ''games'', otherwise we wouldn't see this increasing trend.

I also wonder what's the take on this from the actual top pagers in the leaderboards, team accounts or not they are the people who have most time/money invested in this leaderboard system, it would be equally funny to find out that a big part of them are actually against this trophy spam but find themselves forced to do it in order to stay competitive.

As for the solution, it's going to be hard to find one that makes everyone happy, but seeing CRT members chime in on the issue makes me hopeful something will change soon. Ideally Sony themselves would prevent these trophy spam games from being published at all, but that's wishful thinking isn't it…

Edited October 18, 2022 by Aodir

[MMDE]

Just now, Vindicant said:

I've always thought that if they went back to not allowing games like this to have a plat you'd see a dramatic drop off.  It wouldn't fix the older ones but it would stop the deluge.

 

When Sony changed the trophy level system recently, they made the platinum even more valuable. Before it was 180 points, now it's 300? That alone is like one of those old PSN 100%s.

 

hehe, I got 302 of those PSN 100%s ? When they did that change, I dropped level compared to others around my level.

 

The plat became more valuable in general, even compared to games you don't 100% or DLCs etc.

 

Point is, they really made the quick plats that much more valuable than before. Sony actually made what was a growing issue that much worse.

 

If Sly did a "PSNPP" like I suggest is a fix for the leaderboards, then one could consider reducing the value of a platinum trophy too.

[You]

Controversially I think all of these games should exist on the site. After all, they have been approved and released by Sony, this is a site about trophies after all, is it not?

 

These games deserve to exist as many as any other, and deleting any, well that's just censorship, and isn't the answer.

 

Filters are the best way. That infringes on nobody's rights, and also allows people to hide the spam games if they don't want to see them. If I can filter all my trophies in date order and only showing Bronze, surely there can be a filter to just not show certain games that are on a black list?

 

I think way less jokey threads will be created if only by simply removing certain games from appearing in the NEW TROPHY LISTS section on the front end of the site.

That might be all that is needed to fix a lot of this.

 

Out of sight, out of mind.

 

I also think going forward, there should be more of these, you know 20 a day, 50 new stacks every hour. The more of these games there are, the higher the cost to entry and also the higher the cost to continue, the best way to highlight a problem is to make it far far worse.

 

As with the dangers of quantitative easing, more easy trophies pumped into the system makes diminishing returns, and thus hopefully will put people off starting in this pointless race in the first place.

 

A great deterrent if you ask me.

 

Plugging the flood gates now only gives these games more value and an incentive to collect all the games that have been released up till when you started a ban. Which isn't a good thing. Keep the flood gates open and saturate your market to death. When pay to win because too costly for even you, then more eyes will wake up to this problem.

Edited October 18, 2022 by enaysoft

[MMDE]

16 minutes ago, Aodir said:

 

As much as I agree, it's kinda funny in its own way how a fraction of our already relatively small community has such an effect on the actual storefront.

 

Taking ThiGames as an example, if you sort their games by owners the top result is one of the pizza stacks with ~2600 owners, second and third with ~1300 owners and it just goes down from there, not excluding the percentage which are not actually buying these. But I suppose it doesn't take that many sales to make a return on publishing these ''games'', otherwise we wouldn't see this increasing trend.

I also wonder what's the take on this from the actual top pagers in the leaderboards, team accounts or not they are the people who have most time/money invested in this leaderboard system, it would be equally funny to find out that a big part of them are actually against this trophy spam but find themselves forced to do it in order to stay competitive.

As for the solution, it's going to be hard to find one that makes everyone happy, but seeing CRT members chime in on the issue makes me hopeful something will change soon. Ideally Sony themselves would prevent these trophy spam games from being published at all, but that's wishful thinking isn't it…

 

Releasing these games is more about an initial paywall. Lots of requirements to be able to do so. I've looked into it before. The most expensive part is the dev hardware, but you also need a company, and some static IP and some other stuff. I don't know how much they pay to put games up on PSN.

 

Recently one of the asset swap companies have been releasing "Quiz" games, the most recent is The Taco Quiz, where you just spam R1 and L1 to get the plat. Basically, you can't continue unless you answer true or false correctly on a fact, and spamming the two buttons you try each option. Try to google those facts. Most of the time you will find the source they used, a couple of web sites they just copy/paste the fact from. Sometimes they shorten the sentence and they have to change it to create false facts, which tend to lead to poor sentences and mistakes. I've wondered about the legality of this.

 

What has not been an issue yet is the straight up asset flips, where they go on unity store, buy (or just pirate) some fleshed out prototype you're supposed to use as a basis and maybe learn from to make something of your own, and then just uploads it to PSN. However, recently, there has been more and more of this as well. I'm just hoping we won't see multiple companies uploading the same garbage.

 

11 minutes ago, enaysoft said:

Controversially I think all of these games should exist on the site. After all, they have been approved and released by Sony, this is a site about trophies after all, is it not?

 

These games deserve to exist as many as any other, and deleting any, well that's just censorship, and isn't the answer.

 

Filters are the best way. That infringes on nobody's rights, and also allows people to hide the spam games if they don't want to see them. If I can filter all my trophies in date order and only showing Bronze, surely there can be a filter to just not show certain games that are on a black list?

 

I think way less jokey threads will be created if only by simply removing certain games from appearing in the NEW TROPHY LISTS on the front end of the site.

That might be all that is needed to fix a lot of this.

 

Out of sight, out of mind.

 

I also think going forward, there should be more of these, you know 20 a day, 50 every hour. The more of these games are, the higher the cost to entry and the higher the cost to continue, the best way to highly a problem is to make it far worse.

 

As with the dangers of quantitative easing, the more there are, the more worthless they become, and thus will put people off starting in this pointless race in the first place.

 

A great deterrent if you ask me.

 

Plugging the flood gates now only gives these games more value and an incentive to collect all the games that have been released up till now. Which isn't a good thing.

 

What I suggested is not removing anything, but just counting the trophies differently on the leaderboards. Having a point system that simply don't count too common stacks. However, we also need to realize that asset swaps have the same relevant properties as stacks.

Edited October 18, 2022 by MMDE

[HusKy]

43 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Have the site simply maintain a list of developers

 

One problem, that makes this a bit impractical is the fact that these games are missing info on IGDB so it's really hard to automate this. Needless to say, this does not need to be instant.

[DrBloodmoney]

9 minutes ago, HusKy said:

 

One problem, that makes this a bit impractical is the fact that these games are missing info on IGDB so it's really hard to automate this. Needless to say, this does not need to be instant.

 

That is a reasonable point - though TBH, my whole thing with this issue - and what makes me leery about it in some ways - is the desire to have it all be automated.

 

Obviously, full automation is the best idea in concept, but that's what leads to people wanting to construct formula to do these kind of things - and those are inevitably where I stop being supportive of it, as any formula is liable to have some elements of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" - and catching good, but simple games along with the glut of congealed trophy-porridge they are actually aiming at ?

 

If it did require some human element in the process - someone casting an eye over the new releases to ensure the right products were deemed either "games", or "fudge" - that would be a mammoth task at the outset for sure, as the current games were dealt with, but it would be relatively manageable after that, I would think - maybe in tandem with the work of adding banners / trophy card images etc.?

 

I'm no expert, of course - these are just thoughts!

Edited October 18, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[dannyswfc9]

3 hours ago, FilmFanatic said:

If by reward you mean trophy points then yes, the reward is the same. If by reward you mean anything else like a platinum to be proud of, a feeling of accomplishment at platting a game that not many others have or a plat worthy of putting in your trophy cabinet then no, the reward definitely is not the same.

Good point to be fair.

 

I dont really care about the leaderboards but i think its overdue a change where certain plats are worth more than others.

 

But like you say the feeling of accomplishment beats any digital stat

Edited October 18, 2022 by dannyswfc9

[ArtikSkarab]

For the suggestion of reducing trophy stacks, I know that TT has that option in their leaderboards for only counting unique games.

 

 

Just that simple check enables to see the massive difference that those games make. For exemple, Ikemenzi has 8.9M trophy XP. By only checking unique games, they have 3.6M. That is a major gulf between the two scores. Having those options would be a step in "hiding" those games; people that are not interested can check in and see a more representative leaderboard. It's not the end all be all, but it would be a step in the right direction.

[MMDE]

6 minutes ago, ArtikSkarab said:

For the suggestion of reducing trophy stacks, I know that TT has that option in their leaderboards for only counting unique games.

 

 

Just that simple check enables to see the massive difference that those games make. For exemple, Ikemenzi has 8.9M trophy XP. By only checking unique games, they have 3.6M. That is a major gulf between the two scores. Having those options would be a step in "hiding" those games; people that are not interested can check in and see a more representative leaderboard. It's not the end all be all, but it would be a step in the right direction.

 

hehe, I go from 309 to 158 in the world. ?

[jsisoo]

Having been a PC gamer until recently, I personally prefer Astats formula for achievements. 

 

Each system can be manipulated to a certain degree, but anything is better than what exists now. 

 

Also, this site should stop free advertising for the spam developers. This is their target audience and we're making it easy for them.

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

I want to believe this thread is an indicator of things getting closer to changing... But of course leave it to the unnamed staff of this website to not want to systematically smear out the thing causing the most mayhem to trophy hunting 

[TheBusToYoker]

Trophy leaderboards are the cause of the games existing, and fixing this sites leaderboard is part of the solution.

 

The current system of ranking players doesn't work in general even if you factor out the grubs, because there so are many games with trophies across multiple PlayStation platforms now.

 

The leaderboard has become a redundant feature for the many, and it is time for the health and competitiveness of the trophy hunting community that its leading website does its bit in fixing the problem.

 

It is change it yourselves or I think Sony will eventually put two and two together, that trophy site leaderboards are responsible (inadvertently, but they won't care) for the glut of shovelware on their store, and force this website to change the leaderboards.

 

Points based on rarity is my preferred system.

Edited October 18, 2022 by AMadScotsGuy

[MMDE]

30 minutes ago, AMadScotsGuy said:

Points based on rarity is my preferred system.

 

I've suggested an algorithm I thought produced really good and fair rankings before, but it excluded quite a lot of common trophies.

 

Sure, we can exclude common trophies on a rarity leaderboard, but I'm not that big of a fan of doing it on a main leaderboard.

 

If you don't remove them, the problem is always how x amount of common trophies will be worth more than a single super rare trophy, or how x amount of common will be easier and faster than uncommon etc. Basically, you get the same problem regardless.

 

The only real fix for a main leaderboard is excluding things, but excluding based on rarity would exclude a lot of games that has nothing to do with trophies. We could remove the worst offenders, or we could just go with something that allows for fixing a lot of common complaints.

 

I agree with custom point system, where we exclude common stacks, and where asset swaps are treated as stacks. We could give extra points for rarity, a bit similar to what true trophies has done, though they may not be valuing rarity as much as I'd prefer.

Edited October 18, 2022 by MMDE

[DEI2EK]

My eyes glaze over when I look at the new trophy lists tab and it’s nothing but jumping games and the newest letter game

[Zanreo]

One of the issues with purely rarity-based exclusion is that rarity isn't necessarily indicative of a game's quality or "worth" - most games will have their share of super easy and common "started the game/cleared level 1/did X for the first time" type trophies, after all. Trophy rarity isn't even always indicative of pure difficulty - certain lower rarity trophies aren't as much hard in the traditional sense as they're just obnoxiously grindy and time-consuming. Removing/filtering specific games would be better, and I lean more towards just filtering - just have an option to hide them from view in new games lists/search, and probably as default.

2 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

Personally,I think Ratalaika are the argument against doing it by formula - yes, those lists are easy, and yes, they have stacks - but they are generally good little games, and made to be fun, not trophy-farms.

 

I agree, the stacks can be silly - but I'd say dealing with the truly artless, cynical trophy-mill stuff would go a long way to sorting out the issue - and I personally would be sad to see the site go down the route of discouraging engagement with the easy-but-good, small scope fare like Ratalaika and EastAsiaSoft products. I think those have artistic merit, and shouldn't be viewed in the same light, IMO.

Also very much agree with this - sure, devs like these release easy lists with several stacks and can be considered trophybait by some - but most if not all of what they release actually has some "value" as games, despite being quick and easy. (I'm saying this as someone who tries their best not to be some Gatekeeping Gamer™️, but the recent flood of "just mash/hold X button for quick plat" games are too much even for me)

Edited October 18, 2022 by Zanreo

[MMDE]

22 minutes ago, Zanreo said:

One of the issues with purely rarity-based exclusion is that rarity isn't necessarily indicative of a game's quality or "worth" - most games will have their share of super easy and common "started the game/cleared level 1/did X for the first time" type trophies, after all. Removing/filtering specific games would be better, and I lean more towards just filtering - just have an option to hide them from view in new games lists/search, and probably as default.

Also very much agree with this - sure, devs like these release easy lists with several stacks and can be considered trophybait by some - but most if not all of what they release actually has some "value" as games, despite being quick and easy. (I'm saying this as someone who tries their best not to be some Gatekeeping Gamer™️, but the recent flood of "just mash/hold X button for quick plat" games are too much even for me)

 

I don't think it's gatekeeping games to exclude common stacks from giving points on a leaderboard.   My thoughts is that it would remove the issue entirely, where you can do uncommon stacks still, but no more rata stacks where they release the same game with 6 different regions and 3 or 4 different consoles etc AKA 1 trophy list instead of 10-20 trophy lists for a single game. The problem then becomes the asset swap ones, where they just swap the sprites and you got a "new" game, and this is where I argue that it shouldn't be treated differently from stacks.

Edited October 18, 2022 by MMDE

[DrBloodmoney]

12 minutes ago, Zanreo said:

Also very much agree with this - sure, devs like these release easy lists with several stacks and can be considered trophybait by some - but most if not all of what they release actually has some "value" as games, despite being quick and easy. (I'm saying this as someone who tries their best not to be some Gatekeeping Gamer, but the recent flood of "just mash/hold X button for quick plat" games are too much even for me)

 

This is always the problem with trying to address the issue of these truly meritless, cynical "just hold X" "games" - there is a certain contingent of more militant difficulty/rarity gatekeeper who simply cannot resist the temptation to try and lump in all sorts of other games into any solution.

That then pushes away people like myself, who have no interest whatsoever in gatekeeping difficulty or rarity - but would really like to address the issue of the hobby being flooded by these products, which simply aren't games, in any conventional sense of the word.

 

There will always be some game or other that you can point to and go "well what about this" to defeat any stringent definition (a good example I always use is The Longest Road on Earth - a game with virtually no gameplay, but one genuinely worth playing, as it is essentially a moving, emotional music album, with an interactive music video to accompany)...

... but that's why it's important that this kind of thing have any solution include some human oversight.

 

We are not robots - and anyone here with two brain-cells to rub together can easily distinguish the difference between these cynical, nasty trophy-delivery products, and genuinely artful, yet very easy, games.

 

It's like pornography - any hard-and-fast definition you come up with for it, will always catch some non-pornographic artwork...

...but we know it when we see it. ?

 

The site shouldn't be in the business of gatekeeping what level of difficulty or rarity should be classed as "worthy games"...

...but it should be in the business of - (and as the most popular trophy hunting website, it could be argued it has a responsibility to) - at least do its best to safeguard the hobby from products masquerading as games, purely to prey on its members.

Edited October 18, 2022 by DrBloodmoney