Trophy Hunting/Completionist and why Online Trophies drive me mad.

[Sofa King]

Online never appealed to me mainly because the competitive nature of it just isn't fun to me. I'm more into the stories games tell than bragging about my headshot count, so SP is where I spend my time.

[Walt the Dog]

Personally, I don't mind online trophies as long as they're not too grindy and they aren't designed in a way that could potentially lead to trophy hunters ruining the experience for non-hunters (i.e. any game with a win streak trophy where quitting doesn't reset your streak). Another big mistake is trying to put up roadblocks to boosting. In theory, it should lead to people just doing them legit, but in practice, people will try to find ways to get around it which generally get in the way of actually playing the game or try to convince randoms to help them boost, which just adds to the annoyance people have with trophy hunters.

[FawltyPowers]

I'd like it if instead of online trophies there were Leaderboards and Achievement points. The more points you have the higher your standing on the leaderboard. The rank you have is then attached to your profile the same as trophies.

 

As two separate stats people can see your skills as a trophy hunter against the AI offline but also how highly you rank against others in online play. I think it also encourages people to play more online rather than get the trophies they need and then switch off so they can keep raising their rank. People who don't want to play online will have a low ranking but they won't care, they can instead have a complete trophy cabinet.

 

As others have said above you can be great against the AI and poor in pvp and of course vice versa, having separate stats will show this.

[Pavani_]

This is mean less since offline trophies have ridiculous requirements as well

But we can do those whenever the hell we want.

[Drew-013]

I find that games with online trophies put me off playing the game in the first place.

Knowing that it'll be next to impossible for me to plat in any reasonable time period due to the fact that I have work and a family.

Bioshock 2, AC Brotherhood, AC Revelations, Farcry 2, Quantum of Solace.. all games I want to see a nice shiny plat for, but damn near impossible to obtain.

[Kubanga]

Online trophies are just put in to make more people play the games (more likely) than not shitty mp. It's really stupid tbh but it's how it works.

[Manuelito]

But we can do those whenever the hell we want.

Except sport games all other online trophies are available for years so that's ok.

[AJ_Radio]

For the time being the only trophies I care to get online at this point are the ones I need for the Red Dead Redemption platinum, and the competitive/co-op game modes for Uncharted 2 and 3.

 

I honestly don't care all that much for online trophies. I much prefer to play online on a custom built desktop since you have more options. That's not to say the PS4 has bad online because I'm sure it's pretty decent, I just prefer to play online on PC.

 

I also have a bad internet connection, so anything involving games like Call of Duty: MW3 is out of the question. When I move out and get Xfinity cable internet at an apartment I will probably go for some online trophies, particularly the ones in Far Cry 4 and a few of the Assassins Creed Unity trophies. But yeah, don't care all that much for them personally and what I can do online is limited, sad as it is to say.

[Arkthur]

Online trophies are a pain because they either involve a huge amount of grind or to perform certain actions that are way too situational and other people just get in the way.

However, a good amount of boosting sessions have helped me a lot.

[GarciaFever]

My opinion: I hate it. but at the same time, it all depends on what game you're playing at the time that can make it or break it for the online trophies. most fighting games like Super Street Fighter IV are what I hate the most because they add pointless things such as playing 300 matches online. Like, who in the blue hell wants to go through that bullshit just for one gold trophy!? Oh and let's not forget Mortal Kombat where the only gold trophy is having to master every fighter in the game. What I mean by this is that to master one fighter, you have to perform something like 150 fatalities, spill 10,000 pints of blood, and a couple of other things that I can't recall off the top of my head.

 

 

No, trophies must reflect everything a game has to offer and online is a feature so..
OP: online trophies are mostly hated because people isn't good enough to play online againt real opponent and not predictable AI npc ;D

 

There is a difference between having fun while playing online and being competitive while playing online. I myself want to do the former. If I wanted to play online competitively, then I would stick to playing my Xbox 360 and play some shooter game like Halo.

[KratosTheMighty]

I've never really enjoyed MP trophies. Mp boosting is also a bit of a pain as well. Especially getting a group of people to work together well enough to achieve trophies. I don't like relying on other people..... I also hate when a  singleplayer franchise tacks on multiplayer. 

[GJ4E-]

Online trophies are the sole reason why I will never plat ACB and ACR. It puts pressure on games that have online trophies, always nagging me to get it before servers die down. I don't hate it but it keeps me from going for older games that I really enjoy.. like Red Dead Redemption.

PS My worst fear is falling asleep on the road. How bad was the crash? I remember being piss drunk trying to drive home (which was 10 miles away) at 4 in the morning. I ended up waking up confused at a parking lot 2 hours later haha

[UnforgedSavagery]

Awesome feedback guys! As always a pleasure for keeping it civil. I think I'll solely focus offline trophies for my completion status on games from here on out - perhaps if I want to tread deep water I'll grind out a challenge and try and take down an online trophy or two here and there but other than that I think I'll stick to offline, lol. 

 

[AJ_Radio]

Looking over my list of games (single player only games excluded):

 

Red Dead Redemption - One of my definite favorites from last gen, this game WOULD OF BEEN the very first platinum were it not for the fact that multiplayer trophies require a lot of time spent into them. For instance, winning three free for all matches in a row, I actually got this one by surprise after playing for hours on end, back when I didn't give a damn about trophies. You have to reach the top rank, which may take anywhere from several long hours to one day if you use a certain exploit. Then there's the team trophy which requires you to win four matches in a row. Again, got this one without even knowing it was there.

 

I need FOUR online trophies and the rest I can do on my own for the platinum.

 

Uncharted 2-3 (PS3 versions) - The easiest online required trophies I need for the platinum, but if I were to 100 percent both of them I would need to spend 200+ hours playing. I love a bit of online gaming as much as the next guy but when you have to go out of your way to get so many online trophies, I honestly just couldn't care less. Only reason I would do this is if I want to have a 100 percent completion rate, but I'm not a completionist.

 

The Last of Us (both PS3 and Remastered) - I've played BOTH games for a few hours and from what I've seen they're fantastic. The problem here is the trophies take a long bit of time to get, nothing like Uncharted or God of War. Two gold trophies that you need for the platinum require you to play multiplayer, and that doesn't mean play a few matches and you're done. You have to legitimately play for 30-60 hours depending on how good and quick you are, and to me this is a shame since I'm looking to hunt for gold trophies.

 

Demon Souls/Dark Souls - Now both of these games can be played offline or online depending on your preferences, most of the trophies are not exclusive to either one. Playing online will very much save you a lot of time but I would argue it would be a more satisfying experience if you went and grabbed all the items yourself. Due to the difficulty of these games I have decided to hold off on these until I finish most of my backlog of PS3/PS4 games.

 

Assassins Creed Brotherhood/Revelations/Black Flag - Typical fare from the series, most trophies are fairly easy to get, what most people are complaining about is the grind in multiplayer. In Brotherhood the online trophies are somewhat similar to Red Dead Redemption trophies, only a lot less exciting since Assassins Creed relies a lot more on stealth whereas in Red Dead Redemption you can just run and gun. Revelations is more or less the same with online trophies. Very unnecessary for what started as a single player series, but Ubisoft apparently doesn't care. Black Flag was definitely fun to play through, but I cannot be bothered to spend many long hours reaching the max level.

 

Assassins Creed III - A few hours into this game and I grew bored. Even with the patches the game still feels glitchy, and the story and gameplay leave a lot to be desired. Multiplayer is once again thrown in but someone mentioned it was possible to get the trophies solo using Wolfpack Mode. Anyway, probably won't be playing this game for a while since I didn't particularly enjoy it.

 

Assassins Creed Unity - Thankfully the online trophies consist only of co-op, but it doesn't help when you may get randoms you won't let you accomplish your task. I may eventually platinum this game down the road when I get better internet in a new home, but I didn't enjoy this game a whole lot since Arno is basically a less exciting version of Ezio.

 

Farcry 4 - A couple online required trophies and two co-op trophies but nothing too far out of the way to get. May platinum this game as well, since it looks quite good.

 

Grand Theft Auto V - Probably the game that requires you to spend more time online than offline. Rockstar Games certainly doesn't want to make their games too easy to platinum I guess. I played a good bit of online back in 2013, definitely fun roaming around the landscape but it got boring quick. In my honest opinion once you beat the story and drove around a bit, Los Santos didn't have nearly as much going on in it as one might think. Playing the competitive matches was not nearly as exciting as they were on Red Dead Redemption, in fact the online characters Rockstar makes you play are completely mute, which makes no sense whatsoever. A lot of work could of been done to make the online experience better, but we were left with a half-assed attempt that was delayed two weeks after the initial release of the game.

 

Never played GTA Online on the PS4 since I don't have Playstation Plus, but from what I've been told it's definitely better than it was/is on the PS3.

[Bartolomeus]

Grand Theft Auto V - Probably the game that requires you to spend more time online than offline. Rockstar Games certainly doesn't want to make their games too easy to platinum I guess. I played a good bit of online back in 2013, definitely fun roaming around the landscape but it got boring quick. In my honest opinion once you beat the story and drove around a bit, Los Santos didn't have nearly as much going on in it as one might think. Playing the competitive matches was not nearly as exciting as they were on Red Dead Redemption, in fact the online characters Rockstar makes you play are completely mute, which makes no sense whatsoever. A lot of work could of been done to make the online experience better, but we were left with a half-assed attempt that was delayed two weeks after the initial release of the game.

 

The thing about GTA Online (and probably other free-roam online games) is that they're very dull alone but immensely enjoyable with friends. When I decided to platinum the game on my other account, I played from level 1 to 100 alone, and it was such a grind. It took forever, I played through the same missions over and over, and by the time I reached level 100 I swore to never play it again. Until a good friend of mine decided to give the online mode a chance. Now I'm level 200-something and it was actually the opposite of high-level grindage. It was fun. We drove races, we perfected our execution of various missions and heists.

 

That's the thing about online trophies; they can be very easy and fun to achieve if you're playing with actual friends for leisure. But if you don't have any friends that play the game in question the online modes are for the most part going to be dull and boring. Playing some GTA Online again on this account, I can't play for more than an hour in a row without losing the desire to play further. With friend: fun. Without: utterly boring. What makes GTA Online fun isn't the missions, heists, races. It's the fuck-ups of the missions - when I manage to throw a granade in the wall and blow myself up and telling my friend about it. It's when I try to hit my friends rear-end of his vehicle in the last stretch before the finish line and mess it up completely so that neither of us win. It's about the chaos we create together and the stories we tell each other of said chaos.

 

My biggest gripe with online trophies is that I've got so few friends that I meet in real life that actually plays these games, so I almost exclusively have to slog through them on my own, always looking for corners to cut and potential glitches to exploit instead of enjoying the game as it's meant to be enjoyed.

[AJ_Radio]

The thing about GTA Online (and probably other free-roam online games) is that they're very dull alone but immensely enjoyable with friends. When I decided to platinum the game on my other account, I played from level 1 to 100 alone, and it was such a grind. It took forever, I played through the same missions over and over, and by the time I reached level 100 I swore to never play it again. Until a good friend of mine decided to give the online mode a chance. Now I'm level 200-something and it was actually the opposite of high-level grindage. It was fun. We drove races, we perfected our execution of various missions and heists.

 

That's the thing about online trophies; they can be very easy and fun to achieve if you're playing with actual friends for leisure. But if you don't have any friends that play the game in question the online modes are for the most part going to be dull and boring. Playing some GTA Online again on this account, I can't play for more than an hour in a row without losing the desire to play further. With friend: fun. Without: utterly boring. What makes GTA Online fun isn't the missions, heists, races. It's the fuck-ups of the missions - when I manage to throw a granade in the wall and blow myself up and telling my friend about it. It's when I try to hit my friends rear-end of his vehicle in the last stretch before the finish line and mess it up completely so that neither of us win. It's about the chaos we create together and the stories we tell each other of said chaos.

 

My biggest gripe with online trophies is that I've got so few friends that I meet in real life that actually plays these games, so I almost exclusively have to slog through them on my own, always looking for corners to cut and potential glitches to exploit instead of enjoying the game as it's meant to be enjoyed.

 

Being 27 years of age I've had a fair to a good amount of friends in my life. My problem on PS3/PS4 online trophies is I have to do just about all of them exclusively on my own (boosting is the only other alternative) because said friend of mine doesn't have PS3/PS4, doesn't have said game of said console, can't play online, doesn't have the time, is busy playing another game, etc etc etc. It's difficult to make an arrangement because most of the time friends aren't there to grab that last trophy, they're there to have fun and goof around.

 

So for a game like Red Dead Redemption I have to boost, otherwise I'll never get that platinum. It's age certainly doesn't help either since most people have moved on. If you think Grand Theft Auto Online is bad playing online by yourself you should try getting online trophies for games released in 2007-2008. Many of those are damn near impossible because either the servers are gone or there's barely anybody playing the games.

 

This is why I'm kind of bummed out that Assassins Creed Brotherhood, Revelations, III and Black Flag all require extensive multiplayer in order to get all trophies, because I enjoy the Assassins Creed series. Personally I think the games should be set up like the original PS3 versions of Uncharted 2 and 3, just play a few rounds of online multiplayer and you're done, you have no more online trophies to worry about. Assassins Creed Unity and Far Cry 4 are acceptable, you just need to do a bit of co-op and play some matches. I'm not fond of online trophies that require more than 3-4 players and require hours upon hours of grinding, as everyone else says about them they're a nuisance. I mean sure, Red Dead Redemption was probably pretty fun to play with actual friends (although the servers have always had glitchers and hackers) but it's a real hassle if you're alone online. I poured in 30-45+ hours on multiplayer in that game, the servers are pretty crappy by today's standards.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Ian Lee

[IronMask75]

I don't hate online trophies. I only hate when developers that include online trophies close servers that make it then impossible to get them. Sony should force developers to ensure that all trophies remain achievable at all times.

[Bartolomeus]

Being 27 years of age I've had a fair to a good amount of friends in my life. My problem on PS3/PS4 online trophies is I have to do just about all of them exclusively on my own (boosting is the only other alternative) because said friend of mine doesn't have PS3/PS4, doesn't have said game of said console, can't play online, doesn't have the time, is busy playing another game, etc etc etc. It's difficult to make an arrangement because most of the time friends aren't there to grab that last trophy, they're there to have fun and goof around.

 

So for a game like Red Dead Redemption I have to boost, otherwise I'll never get that platinum. It's age certainly doesn't help either since most people have moved on. If you think Grand Theft Auto Online is bad playing online by yourself you should try getting online trophies for games released in 2007-2008. Many of those are damn near impossible because either the servers are gone or there's barely anybody playing the games.

 

This is why I'm kind of bummed out that Assassins Creed Brotherhood, Revelations, III and Black Flag all require extensive multiplayer in order to get all trophies, because I enjoy the Assassins Creed series. Personally I think the games should be set up like the original PS3 versions of Uncharted 2 and 3, just play a few rounds of online multiplayer and you're done, you have no more online trophies to worry about. Assassins Creed Unity and Far Cry 4 are acceptable, you just need to do a bit of co-op and play some matches. I'm not fond of online trophies that require more than 3-4 players and require hours upon hours of grinding, as everyone else says about them they're a nuisance. I mean sure, Red Dead Redemption was probably pretty fun to play with actual friends (although the servers have always had glitchers and hackers) but it's a real hassle if you're alone online. I poured in 30-45+ hours on multiplayer in that game, the servers are pretty crappy by today's standards.

 

I agree completely, I'm in the exact same position. I have this one friend who owns a PS3 and a PS4, but he doesn't own many games. I think the most fitting term for his like is "casual gamer". Whenever we play together, it's either GTA or FIFA, and we do not play on a regular basis. The only PSN friends I've got that are playing daily are people I've met on forums or in-game, people I don't feel compelled to play with. So when I'm not playing FIFA or GTA, I'm playing alone. So I agree with your reasons for disliking multiplayer trophies, I just took a different approach; I complained about my friends not playing the same games as I do--or not playing games at all--because that makes online hunting much more difficult and dreary for me.  

 

Because I do dislike the sorts of trophies you describe. Reaching level 100 in GTA Online is quite extreme, with friends or not. Believe me when I tell you that those levels I gained while playing with my friend took a long, long time to gain. And I think that GTA V is an example of a bad one in that regard; whereas games like Assassin's Creed: Black Flag "only" requires one to reach level 55 and play a few different game modes, it can be done in a couple dozens of hours. Reaching level 100 in GTA Online has to be closer to a dozen dozens. And as you say, think about how that's going to be in 5 years or more, when the player base has shrunk significantly.

 

I would say that I ultimately agree with those who suggest to remove online trophies from the other trophies and make them its own thing, like DLC trophies. That way we can platinum games after servers are down, after all other players have abandoned the game etc. And perhaps try to make them achievable within a reasonable amount of time. It's okay to add multiplayer trophies so hunters are forced to try out "everything the game has to offer". It's something completely different to have us clock in 100 hours to get it.

[Embryogreen]

Online trophies are the devil if you can't achieve something solo nor can you find anyone to boost with. That being said, I wouldn't mind boosting Resident Evil 5's Versus mode.